STEUBEN – More study is needed to determine what caused the death of a 32-year-old man whose body was found Sunday, a state medical examiner’s office spokeswoman said Monday.

David Nason, 32, had been missing for nearly a month when his body was found Sunday in heavy growth about a quarter-mile from where he had been staying. An autopsy was performed Monday. “We have additional work to do on the case,” the medical examiner’s office spokeswoman said afterward.

Nason was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who was last seen on Oct. 16 when he left an Asa Dyer Brook Road home where he had been staying with his girlfriend and a friend.

The body was found in difficult terrain about five hours into a search and was located by one of the 10 search-dog teams deployed to search a wide area in Steuben, said Sgt. Patrick Devlin of the Maine Warden Service.

Trained searchers on ATVs traversed the paths and trails that crisscross the area while others on foot checked the shoreline and woods. A spotter in an airplane searched from above for any clue of the missing man.

“We in effect searched the whole peninsula,” Devlin said. The effort included 20 trained ground searchers, with seven Maine Game Wardens organizing and assisting in the search.

The body was found about a quarter of a mile from the home where he had been staying, in what Devlin described as “unbelievably thick” growth of closely packed small trees and brush.

Adding to the difficulty of the search was that it wasn’t known which direction Nason had taken or what, if any, health problems he was dealing with at the time. A healthy person could have walked a long distance or gotten a ride, so searchers were unsure if he was still in the area.

State police investigators had searched the area in recent weeks, but it wasn’t clear how close they had gotten to where the body was ultimately found. Even if they had gotten close, Devlin said, the body was obscured by the thick growth and could easily have been missed. It wouldn’t have been spotted from the air, he said. It can and has happened in other search cases.

“You could walk within feet and not see somebody,” he said.

Devlin credits the persistence of the searchers as well as favorable conditions for finding the body Sunday. It was cool, with a southwest wind blowing, which Devlin said aided the search dogs in finding a scent.