Body found in Waukegan Harbor identified as missing Navy sailor
CHICAGO (CBS) – A body found in near Waukegan Harbor has been identified as Seamus Gray, the Navy sailor who disappeared last month.
Around 7 p.m., Waukegan police officers were conducting a traffic stop near the Waukegan Harbor when ComEd workers flagged them down, according to police. The utility workers, who were doing routine work near the harbor and reported they saw what they believed to be a body in the water.
An officer went into the water to recover the body. The Waukegan Fire Department also responded and retrieved the body further onto the shore.
The body and clothing "match the description of the missing United States Navy Sailor Seamus Gray," police said. Gray, 21, went missing on March 18.
The Lake County Coroner's Office later identified the body as Gray. Preliminary results revealed Gray died of drowning.
"There is no evidence of significant injury which would have contributed to his death," The Lake County Coroner's Office confirmed.
Police said Gray was last seen at a bar near the Waukegan Harbor. Police from Waukegan and North Chicago, firefighters, the Office of Naval Intelligence, water rescue crews and about 100 Navy personnel spent hours in the following days looking for Gray along the lakefront. Gray's mother also traveled to Waukegan from Florida to search for her son.
Detectives found video surveillance footage of Gray leaving Ibiza Bar on Genesee Street in Waukegan.
The manager of the bar told CBS 2 Gray was intoxicated there.
The video shows him leaving the bar alone through a back alley in a pink outfit, and he was later seen at the intersection of Sheridan Road and Washington Street around 1:40 a.m. on March 18 and had not been seen or spoken to since leaving the bar.
