What happened to fighter pilot Grant Stout?

Sounds like a great start to a real life mystery novel. I wish it weren't though.

Stout’s mission leader, Major Arlo C. Henry, Jr., later said the Thunderbolt was hit in the engine. According to Henry, Stout had been on his way home from a dive-bombing mission when he spotted a German train, rolled over, and went down to strafe it. A squadron report differed slightly from Henry’s recollection, saying that Stout was strafing a truck. Many decades later, a researcher would claim that Stout’s target was neither a train nor a truck but something far more macabre. Said Henry, “Stout’s parachute was seen to open and land safely.”
Because Stout was a big, husky guy who seemed cramped even in the famously roomy cockpit of a P-47, his buddy, 1st Lt. Allen V. Mundt, had pleaded with him to exchange his standard 24-foot parachute for a larger, 28-foot model that was available only upon special request by the supply sergeant. Stout had apparently requested the larger chute but had not yet gotten it.

That's quite a story and quite an ending Brother Dale.