Guilford Cole Henderson, 27, grandson of the late Nashville socialites Jane and Guilford Dudley Jr., has been missing since he started a solo hike July 9
Authorities on Aug. 8 found the body of an American hiker who’d been missing in mountains along the Spain-France border since July 14, two Spanish news outlets have reported.
The 27-year-old hiker, Guilford Cole Henderson — grandson of the founder of Nashville’s Swan Ball and a former ambassador to Denmark — appeared to have fallen about 650 feet down a mountain in Spain’s remote Ordesa y Monte Pardido National Park in the Pyrenees, according to both digital newspaper El Espanol and the newspaper El Diario De Huesca.
The Tennessean has not been able to independently verify the report. In an email to The Tennessean, the U.S. Embassy in Spain declined comment. The Spanish Civil Guard hasn’t responded to a Tennessean email asking for information.
Spanish authorities have told Henderson’s parents, Trevania and John Henderson, that they believe they’ve recovered their son’s body, loved ones in Nashville have told The Tennessean.
The search for Henderson, a 2020 graduate of Rhodes College in Memphis, has drawn international media attention since his friends posted pleas for help on social media in finding him. Several of them had hiked together in Spain’s remote Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park.
Then Henderson decided to hike alone after putting his cell phone on airplane mode to save battery, friends posted on Facebook. The friends said they became concerned when Henderson didn’t show for a June 14 flight from Spain to Amsterdam, where Henderson was living.
Henderson is the grandson of one of Nashville’s most prominent and civic-minded couples. His grandfather was the late Guilford Dudley Jr., once ambassador to Denmark. His grandmother was the late Jane Dudley, who founded the Swan Ball, the annual white-tie gala.
El Espanol, which says it reaches 20 million unique users a month, said authorities are taking the recovered body to a forensic medicine institute to “confirm his identity.”
Henderson’s parents, who now live in New England, traveled to Spain for at least a week to help with daily search efforts there, loved ones told The Tennessean. His mother grew up in Nashville and maintains ties here and visits Tennessee often, loved ones said.
Cole Henderson’s social media posts show the world traveler and adventurer trekking along the famed Tour du Mont Blanc through Switzerland, Italy, and France, skiing in Breckenridge, Colorado, hiking in South Dakota’s Badlands National Park and volunteering in Costa Rica.
His LinkedIn profile says he’s an engineer “building today’s AI for tomorrow’s power” at Dexter Energy and that he graduated from Rhodes College in Memphis with honors with a degree in computer science.
Reach Brad Schmitt at brad@tennessean.com.