Identified! MI - Lake Michigan shore, Golden Twp & Saugatuck, UncMale Adult, UP11768 & UP12886, 5' 8", Nov'13 - Ronald Wayne Jager

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Authorities in southwestern Michigan say they're trying to identify a body that washed up on the shore of Lake Michigan.

The Allegan County sheriff's department says that deputies got a call Saturday that a person was walking his dog on the beach when he saw the body.

The site is in Casco Township, just north of South Haven.

The department says the body appears to have been in the water for a long time and was badly decomposed. It says investigators will probably have to use dental records or DNA to identify it.

http://www.13abc.com/story/27469111/dog-walker-finds-body-on-lake-michigan-shoreline
 
This article has the same information but a nice picture of the site: http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2014/11/24/dog-walker-finds-body-on-lake-michigan-shoreline/

http://www.wzzm13.com/story/news/local/lakeshore/2014/11/24/body-washes-allegan-shoreline/19490755/ From this article: "Deputies were called to Casco Township, just north of South Haven, by a person who found the body while walking his dog on the beach Saturday. The person told deputies that he walks the daily and the body had not been there before."

Another article with the same information: http://www.hollandsentinel.com/article/20141124/NEWS/141129537/10923/NEWS
 
It can take several days to write up a report. With the holidays it could be even longer.

Autopsy reports are considered private medical information in some states and there could potentially be issues of ongoing investigation.
 
I wish they would at least say if the body is male or female...but maybe they aren't sure due to the severity of the decomp.

How long will it take a body to fully decompose in the ocean I wonder?
 
Well, if my boater was found on October 6, this is not the same as the OP. I wonder if he could have had a passenger on-board. The locations are very close for both cases.

I agree - very weird that two individuals would go missing around the same time and wind up in the same lake if not affiliated.
 
Spellbound, I know you and Kilen mentioned that you didn't believe this could be Chelsea Bruck because of the distance, but it looked to me that this was only a little over an hours drive from the party she was last seen at. An hours drive doesn't seem unreasonable to me, but maybe it's more (I'm not familiar with Michigan at all - I was just looking at a map). Is there another reason you suspect this isn't her?
 
Spellbound, I know you and Kilen mentioned that you didn't believe this could be Chelsea Bruck because of the distance, but it looked to me that this was only a little over an hours drive from the party she was last seen at. An hours drive doesn't seem unreasonable to me, but maybe it's more (I'm not familiar with Michigan at all - I was just looking at a map). Is there another reason you suspect this isn't her?

First off, because Kilen is Chelsea's aunt, and other friends and family members post there, I do not think it fair to discuss this in detail at Chelsea's thread.

My main reasoning is the condition of the body. The distance (closer to a 3 hour drive) has nothing to do with my feeling. Chelsea has been missing for one month, the weather has been relatively cool. This body was essentially in pieces and bones. I just don't think a body would be that decomposed already in a month or less. It is not impossible, just a gut reaction and the length of time it takes for such decomposition.
 
I agree - very weird that two individuals would go missing around the same time and wind up in the same lake if not affiliated.

Lake Michigan is a very large and quite dangerous lake, big enough to have whitecaps and rip tides. Dozens of people drown in it every year, and many of them are not recovered.

From a recent article: "Between 2010 and 2012, 38 people drowned in Lake Michigan on a Sunday. There were 107 men who drown in lake Michigan compared to 23 women..." http://www.wzzm13.com/news/article/260307/2/Who-is-most-likely-to-drown-in-Lake-Michigan
 
Lake Michigan is a very large and quite dangerous lake, big enough to have whitecaps and rip tides. Dozens of people drown in it every year, and many of them are not recovered.

From a recent article: "Between 2010 and 2012, 38 people drowned in Lake Michigan on a Sunday. There were 107 men who drown in lake Michigan compared to 23 women..." http://www.wzzm13.com/news/article/260307/2/Who-is-most-likely-to-drown-in-Lake-Michigan

Thanks for this, carbuff. When I was searching for info on missing persons in this area, I was surprised how many bodies were found washed ashore in this general area of South Haven since 2010. There were many!
 
My daughter went to college at Northwestern, which is on the western shore. She says they call April when the water starts to warm up "body season" because all the bodies that had sunk due to cold water and then rise as the water warms finally wash ashore.

Coming ashore at this time of year makes me inclined to think it was somebody lost offshore during the summer. It's the wrong time of year for older bodies to be surfacing.
 
First off, because Kilen is Chelsea's aunt, and other friends and family members post there, I do not think it fair to discuss this in detail at Chelsea's thread.

My main reasoning is the condition of the body. The distance (closer to a 3 hour drive) has nothing to do with my feeling. Chelsea has been missing for one month, the weather has been relatively cool. This body was essentially in pieces and bones. I just don't think a body would be that decomposed already in a month or less. It is not impossible, just a gut reaction and the length of time it takes for such decomposition.

Yes, I know - that's why I brought the conversation here.

I hadn't read prior to today that the body was in pieces, or how long they believed the body had been in the water - just that it was badly decomposed, which doesn't really tell a whole lot. Especially when you factor in animals and such.

Anyway, thanks for sharing what you know.
 

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