On 5/28/11 this officer received information from the White Co. Sheriff's Office about a possible boating accident.  Upon arrival at the scene a deputy informed us that both victims had borrowed V1 from V1's owner on Friday 5/27/11 at about 7:30pm to go put out some trot lines and yo-yo's.  They were supposed to return around midnight but never did.  Victim 2's father advised he noticed they hadn't returned from their fishing trip the next morning and he headed to the lake to look for them.  He said when he arrived, he had some fishermen take him out in their boat to look for his son and that he found V1 northeast of Reeds Access around the bend in the lake and it was turned over on a stump.  

He searched the entire lake for the victims but never found them.  We then launched our patrol boat and when we found V1 it was turned upright and was floating down the lake on the opposite side from where the father originally located it and turned it over.  V1 was full of water but no contents.  We towed V1 back to the landing where the owner identified it as the boat they borrowed.  I then asked the owner what they used to power V1 with and he advised paddles.  We launched a search to try and find the victims.  Upon searching we found a wooden box with yo-yo's inside, two black shoes, a can of Off and a pack of stink bait floating at the edge of the bank on the west side from where V1 was found.  Directly across from these items on the east side we located a white Styrofoam cooler.  Later that evening we found a white Puma shoe on the east side of the bank about 75 yards north from where V1 was found.  We also found a bucket with a rain jacket inside floating next to the bank where it appeared that someone had gotten out of a boat and consumed 5 beers and left the bottles lying on the bank.  Later it was discovered that the 5 beer bottles were the same kind missing from the victim's vehicle.  All items found were identified by the families of the victims as theirs. 

*When the White Co. deputy assisted the family with unlocking the victim's truck, he found a case of beer with around 13 beer missing from the box. 

The search continued with dive teams, sonar equipment, cadaver dogs, drag hooks and multiple agencies for the next 13 days.  On 06/09/11 at 7:00am the body of victim 2 was located floating next to the bank about 100 yards from where V1 was found; later that same evening at 6:54pm the body of victim 1 was located floating in the middle of the lake approx. 100 yards from where V1 was found.  Both bodies were sent to the Crime Lab for an autopsy and toxicology test.  Cause of death for both victims is listed as drowning but the toxicology is still pending on both at the time of this report.

At this point there has not been any witnesses located and it is impossible to really know what happened or to determine seat position they were in at the time of the accident.  We also don't know what time it occurred because there was no witnesses, the best we can say is that it happened between 7:30pm on 5/27/11 and 7:00am on 5/28/11.
BEEBE                         