Missing Hiker Found Dead in Angeles Forest : Search: Jeremy Sullivan, 16, apparently fell from a 40-foot incline in a rocky area. He had been on a camping trip with friends.

Rescue workers found the body of a 16-year-old high school football player from Anaheim who strayed while hiking in the high, rugged Angeles National Forest, authorities said Saturday.

Jeremy Dean Sullivan, a varsity player for Katella High School, apparently fell from a 40-foot incline in the scrubby, rocky area, investigators said. Searchers found the teen-ager’s body Saturday morning at the base of the incline and only 80 yards from the East Fork Ranger’s Station, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Larry Mead.

The teen-ager was an inexperienced camper and hiker who was looking forward to the weekend camping trip with five other teen-agers, several of whom had gone camping before, said his father, Arthur Sullivan.

Jeremy Sullivan and his friends had been hiking Friday near the Heaton Flats Campground, Mead said. Sullivan apparently wandered off about 1 p.m., and his friends searched for him for four hours, then called the Sheriff’s Department.

“We don’t know if he died of the fall, or from exposure, or from a combination,” Mead said. “The temperature (in the mountains) dropped to the 30s last night. His upper body had trauma on it that was probably from the fall, but we won’t know the exact cause of death until an autopsy is held.”

An autopsy was expected to be performed today or Monday, a Los Angeles County coroner’s office spokeswoman said.

About 75 deputies and volunteers began searching for Sullivan at 5 p.m. Friday, Mead said. He said the search temporarily ceased at 4 a.m. Saturday. The body was discovered shortly after the rescue workers resumed their search two hours later. Mead said Sullivan was wearing only jeans and boots when his body was found.

The elder Sullivan, a construction contractor, joined the search for his youngest son shortly after the youth was reported missing Friday.

Sullivan said he last saw his son Thanksgiving Day. After sharing a holiday dinner, Jeremy Sullivan left home to spend the night with a friend, the father said. The teen-agers planned to get an early start on their three-day trip the next morning, Arthur Sullivan said.

“The last time I saw him, I was sitting on the couch in the living room. He hugged and kissed me goodby and I told him I loved him and he left,” he said. Arthur Sullivan said he and other family members were preparing to put up their Christmas tree when they received a call that Jeremy was missing.

Arthur Sullivan; his wife, Janice, and their eldest son, Shawn, 24, drove to the campsite and spent hours combing the woods, using a flashlight and calling out for Jeremy.

They did not know until the next day that they had been searching a short distance from where Jeremy lay.

“I went back out at daybreak and saw a sheriff’s car,” the father said. “A deputy said they had found my son. I asked if he was alive, but (the deputy) wasn’t sure. I went out there and asked another sheriff.

“He couldn’t answer me and I knew (Jeremy) wasn’t,” the elder Sullivan said, sobbing.

Staff writer Minerva Canto contributed to this story.