'Three Cups of Tea' co-author Relin kills self

Relin killed himself in the rural community of Corbett near Portland last month, according to the deputy Multnomah County medical examiner, Peter Bellant, who confirmed the death on Sunday. He was 49.

Relin died of a blunt force head injury on Nov. 14, Bellant said. Neither he nor Relin's family would provide details of his death.

His body was found along railroad tracks running along the Columbia River where a rural road passes over the tracks and Interstate 84, said Multnomah County sheriff's Lt. Derrick Peterson. Detectives weren't releasing further details until they viewed a surveillance video, Peterson said.

The book, which has sold about 4 million copies since being published in 2006, describes how Greg Mortenson, the other co-author, resolved to build schools for Pakistani villagers who nursed him to health after a failed mountaineering expedition.

Relin "understood the potential importance of that story — that it could show that building schools was an antidote to just dropping bombs on that part of the world," said Lee Kravitz, who introduced Relin and Mortenson.

"Three Cups of Tea" was conceived as a way to raise money for and tell the story of Mortenson's Central Asia Institute, which he co-founded in 1996 to build schools in Central Asia.

Relin interviewed Mortenson, attended several of his lectures and read previous articles before preparing a book proposal that was bought by Penguin Group. Relin then conducted more interviews with Mortenson and others before writing the manuscript.

The account came under scrutiny last year when "60 Minutes" and writer Jon Krakauer said it contained numerous falsehoods.

Mortenson denied any wrongdoing, though he has acknowledged some of the events were compressed over different periods of time.