Thousand Oaks resident Matthew Walter Chidgey, 40, was found dead last week in a rainswollen creek in Wildwood Park.

Chidgey was the bass player for the Spazmatics, a local tribute band that recently played at The Canyon in Agoura Hills. He was remembered at the club last evening after a private family service.

“Matt grew up in Thousand Oaks and graduated from Thousand Oaks High School. The people here have been very nice and supportive of his family this week,” said his aunt, Wanda Pontz from Louisiana.

His roommate told police Chidgey had left his home alone on Jan. 20 to hike in nearby Wildwood Park to see the waterfalls in Wildwood Canyon fully flowing from the heavy runoff after the rainstorms.

On Thursday evening, after not hearing from Chidgey since he’d left to go hiking, his family reported him missing to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

Deputies launched a search that night and continued Friday morning until his body was found.

“There was nothing about the nature of Chidgey’s disappearance that indicated any foul play occurred,” said Detective Eric Buschow.

At least 40 members of the Ventura County Sheriff’s search and rescue team as well as members of the Ventura County Fire Department’s swift water rescue team were involved in the search.

It was Chidgey’s family and friends who located his body at around 8:40 a.m. Friday in the Meadow Cove area, about half a mile from the park’s main waterfall.

A sheriff’s department helicopter was needed to recover Chidgey’s body, which was found at the bottom of a steep, rugged canyon, a police report said.

At the time of Chidgey’s disappearance, police said, the trails in the 1,800-acre park, with a trailhead at Avenida de Los Arboles at Big Sky Drive, had been closed by park officials and marked with warning signs.

Buschow warned others to use caution around moving water, calling it a “powerful force that is easily underestimated.”

Officials with the Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency urge hikers and park visitors to wait until at least three days after a rainstorm before entering the trails in Wildwood.

Park visitors should check the agency’s website at www.conejoopenspace.org for updates on trail conditions.

“He died by asphyxiation by drowning,” said Ventura County Chief Dep. Medical Examiner James Baroni.

Instead of flowers the family has asked for a donations to Haiti relief efforts through Doctors Without Borders at www.networkforgood.org/donation/MakeDonation.aspx?ORGID2=133433452.