Ohio man found dead with gunshot wound while camping on Puerto Rico beach, and no one has been arrested

Tyler Wilkin, a 35-year-old Ohio native, was found shot in the back of the head at a remote Puerto Rico beach campsite earlier this month, and weeks later, police have made no arrests and his family is raising money to hire their own investigator.

Wilkin's body was discovered on July 10 in the mangroves at Playa La Selva, a secluded stretch of coastline near the town of Luquillo on Puerto Rico's northeast coast. He had a single gunshot wound to the back of his head. Local Puerto Rican media outlet TeleOnce first reported the discovery. Fox News Digital reported that the killing bore the hallmarks of a targeted shooting, with friends and family describing the manner of death as execution-style.

No suspect has been named. No motive has been established. And as of late July, Puerto Rican authorities had not publicly commented on the status of any investigation. Fox News Digital reached out to the Policía de Puerto Rico for information on the case but received no response.

Wilkin's final texts described a stranger growing aggressive near his tent

Wilkin had moved from Ohio to Puerto Rico in 2024. He was camping alone at Playa La Selva, a remote beach accessible only by foot, when he began texting friends about unsettling activity near his campsite the night before his body was found.

Iva Mo, who identified herself as Wilkin's girlfriend, told FOX 19 Cincinnati that Wilkin had messaged friends about hearing eerie howling outside his tent and sounds resembling fireworks. He referred to the source of the noise as "the howler." About two hours after texting that "the howler is back," Wilkin sent what appears to have been his last message.

Mo told the New York Post what that final text said:

"At two in the morning, like two hours later, he said something like, This guy is getting rowdy, LOL. And that was the last that we ever heard of him."

No one has publicly identified the individual Wilkin referred to in those messages. Whether "the howler" had any connection to Wilkin's death remains an open question, one that, so far, no authority has answered on the record.

Mo also expressed the raw frustration of a family left without answers. She questioned what could have motivated the killing of a man camping on a beach.

"To have his entire future just taken away like that in just a split second for what? Like over a wallet or over, I don't know, for whatever reason, like, it's just really hard to accept."

Family launches fundraiser after investigators go quiet

With no arrests and no public updates from Puerto Rican law enforcement, Wilkin's loved ones have turned to a GoFundMe campaign to fund a private investigation. The fundraiser page lays out the family's position plainly:

"We are determined to leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of the truth, and these additional funds will help us cover any and all expenses that may arise during the private investigation. Tyler deserved a full life, and he deserves for every possible avenue to be explored."

The decision to hire a private investigator speaks to a gap that families of crime victims abroad know well. When a killing happens on foreign soil, or, in Puerto Rico's case, on a U.S. territory where local police run the investigation, American families often find themselves with limited leverage and even less information. The case echoes the broader challenge facing Americans who die under violent or unclear circumstances outside the mainland, where accountability can be slow to materialize.

A friend of Wilkin's, identified on Facebook as Trigger Ray, shared the fundraiser link and wrote about the man he knew:

"Tyler was an awesome guy and a great friend, incredibly intelligent with more opportunities ahead of him than most folks I've ever met."

Born in Wilmington, drawn to the coast

Wilkin grew up in Wilmington, Ohio, a small city about halfway between Cincinnati and Columbus. His obituary, published by Turner Funeral Homes, described a man who loved the outdoors, tennis, hiking, rock climbing, and time at the beach. He is survived by his parents and four siblings.

The obituary also noted something that makes his death harder to absorb: no matter how far Wilkin traveled, he stayed connected to home.

"Yet no matter where life took him, he was never too far from home. He made frequent trips back to be present with those he loved most."

He moved to Puerto Rico two years ago. By all available accounts, he was living the kind of life, active, adventurous, close to the water, that drew him to the island in the first place. Camping at a remote beach was not out of character. Being found dead there was.

Critical questions remain unanswered weeks later

Nearly three weeks passed between the discovery of Wilkin's body and the first major reports on his death. In that window, no law enforcement agency, local or federal, has made a public statement about suspects, evidence, or investigative progress. The silence is itself a fact worth noting, particularly when the victim is a U.S. citizen found with a gunshot wound to the back of the head on U.S. territory.

Among the questions that remain open: Was Wilkin camping alone, or were others present at the site? Who discovered his body, and under what circumstances? Did police recover any physical evidence, a weapon, shell casings, forensic material, from the scene? And has any agency beyond the Policía de Puerto Rico been brought into the case? When federal authorities act swiftly in other cases, the contrast with this kind of silence stands out.

The characterization of Wilkin's death as "execution-style" has appeared across multiple reports, attributed to friends, family, and media accounts rather than to any official law enforcement statement. Whether that description originated with a medical examiner's finding or with the family's own assessment of the wound is not clear from any public record so far.

What is clear is this: a 35-year-old American was found dead under violent circumstances on a beach in a U.S. territory. His family is paying out of pocket to investigate what happened. And the people whose job it is to find his killer have said nothing.

When a government cannot, or will not, account for how one of its own citizens ended up dead on its own soil, the family's fundraiser page starts to read less like a plea and more like an indictment.