On Saturday September 24, 2011 at approximately 3:30pm I Game Warden received a phone call from a local landowner about a truck that had been parked overnight at Coon Bridge Crossing on the Cibolo Creek and located a small flat bottom boat drifting in the creek downstream from the bridge.  Myself and Game Warden made the location and located the truck and checked registration.  The registration came back.  We soon after met with landowner and his wife and entered the property and located the boat that they informed us about.  The boat was indeed abandoned with the minnow bucket and aerator still running.  We examined the boat to see if there were any items left in the boat of importance and found bait and no life jackets and a bucket with misc items and no food or water of any kind.  I was able to ascertain a cell phone number for Victim and attempted to call it and only got voice mail.  I also was able to get ahold of a family member which happened to be his sister and asked if they had heard from or seen Victim and was informed that they hadn't heard from him since Friday Sept 23, 2011 a little after 5pm and had tried calling him numerous times and were unable to reach him.

I requested assistance from the local sheriff's office and had other officers make the scene as well as the local sheriff.  Captain my supervisor was also on scene for assistance and helped in the search.  After further investigation of the creek we located an oar floating in the creek just up stream from the boat as well as a baseball cap floating in the creek.  We made a couple more attempts at calling Victim's cell phone and finally located it in the boat inside of a coffee can with his wallet.  Several family members started to make the location to assist in searching for Victim by land.  We continued the search until we ran out of light to continue the next day.  Before we cleared the scene for the day we asked the family if Victim had any medical issues and they informed us that he was taking medication and had been in a couple of severe accidents in years past that caused him at times to have seizures as well as wake up some mornings and not remember who he was and had difficulty remembering things.

The next day Sunday September 25, 2011 we made the location again and started the search.  We were unable to recover a body that day but was able to find a fishing pole that was positively identified by his family as Victim's.  

On Monday September 26, 2011 at approximately 7:45am I located the body in very poor condition floating face down in the creek between the sandbar island in the middle of the creek and east bank where I stood.  The body was recovered from the creek by Karnes City Fire Department and positively identified.

Cestahowa                     