RedactedNarrative: On thursday august 22, 2019 around 16:15, operator was coming back to the anchorage marina in atlantic beach. He had tied his boat to the dock and backed his truck and trailer down the boat ramp at the marina. At 16:38 a worker at the marina, noticed a boat adrift at the mouth of 8 ½ marina channel and then around 16:40, subject noticed a body drifting face down in the middle of money island channel, about 75 yards outside of the marina. He immediately called the police. By the time an atlantic beach marine unit officer made it on scene, a few minutes later, operator's body was found near the green #5 day marker about 100 yards from the marina. His vessel, a 22' jones brothers flat bottom boat, was found drifting with the motor off and trimmed all the way up about 300 yards west of his body. Atlantic beach marine unit officer towed the boat back to the marina. Atlantic beach fire department and morehead city fire department arrived on scene and pulled the body out of the water and took him back to anchorage marina. I arrived on scene around 17:40 and started investigating the scene. Operator's truck was already moved out of the ramp to make way for other vessels and ems, and his vessel was parked at a slip in anchorage marina.
  
  In operator's vessel was his wallet on the port side of the center console and a child's toy dump truck at the stern of the boat. In the port side console were 4 empty beer cans. Also, on the portside stern rubber rail, dirt was found as if the boat had rubbed against oysters or rock. Dirt, rock and a piece of grass was also found on the prop of the motor. On the starboard side of the stern, the rubber rail looked as if it had been pulled out of place. A beach chair and a bean bag chair were found on the side of the ramp. 
  
  After examining the body, no physical marks, scratches, cuts, or blood was found on the body. A pack of cigarettes was found in operator's left pocket.  After looking at the boat trailer, the wench strap was found to be pulled out about 2.5 feet. After an autopsy, the cause of death was ruled an accidental drowning. The autopsy also revealed that operator had been consuming alcohol.  There was no trauma to his head, and his heart was enlarged. The medical examiner said that it was normal for someone with high blood pressure to have an enlarged heart and that they could not prove that it was any kind of cardiac event. There were no witnesses at the scene and the three cameras in front of the marina have been inoperable since hurricane florence.
  
  It is unknown what caused operator to go into the water. It is speculated that after he backed his truck down, he loosened the wench strap and pulled it out about 2.5 feet. Subject noticed that the boat trailer was backed so deep that only about a foot of the bumpers were sticking out of the water, leading me to believe that he was going to pull the boat onto his trailer as much as he could and then wench it the rest of the way.  However, there were no lines attached to his boat (all of it was stowed away in the consoles on the bow). So he could have driven the boat onto the trailer and then turned off the engine and put the motor up. Then perhaps he threw the bean bag chair and beach chair out of the vessel and then threw his wallet out of his pocket before he got out of the vessel to hook his wench strap to the bow eye.  But the wind could have pushed the boat off the trailer as he was trying to hook it on and he had to swim after it, wore himself out and drowned where the wind then carried him out into the channel. Then the boat hit the pilings of the marina (which would explain the dirt found on the prop and stern) and drifted into the channel and out into the sound. However, the exact cause of the incident is unknown.
  
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