Body found in San Francisco Bay identified as Sacramento County woman missing from sunken boat

A body found in San Francisco Bay on Thursday afternoon was identified as one of the three passengers missing after the sinking of a boat near Alcatraz Island on Tuesday.

San Francisco's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said the person was 58-year-old Tondra Miller from Sacramento County. She was also known as Tondra Madruga, the office said.

The San Francisco Police Department said at approximately 1:02 p.m., officers assigned to a marine unit were conducting sonar scanning for the sunken boat when a passing vessel alerted them of a body in the water west of Treasure Island, which is adjacent to Yerba Buena Island at the midpoint of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.  

The location where the body was found within the area being searched for signs of the missing boat and passengers.

Twenty people were aboard the Stockton, California-based Volare on Tuesday afternoon in San Francisco Bay when the 49-foot cabin cruiser capsized and sank about 600 yards west of Alcatraz. One person, 78-year-old Clifford Boisa, was pronounced dead after being brought to shore. Two other passengers, Boisa's wife, Jackie, and his sister, Carol Boisa, were missing and presumed dead after the U.S. Coast Guard suspended search efforts on Wednesday evening.

Miller was identified as a friend of the Boisa family. She was on the boat trip being held as a memorial to her friend, a relative of the Boisa family, who died in 2016 and whose ashes were scattered on the trip around San Francisco Bay, according to the family. The boat was on its way back to the dock when it took on heavy waves and capsized, according to the Coast Guard.

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Earlier Thursday, the San Francisco Police Department said its marine unit, the U.S. Coast Guard, and other partners were working to locate the vessel, which is at an estimated depth of 120 feet on a rocky seabed in an area of the bay with strong tidal currents along with wind and weather challenges.

Crews are using multiple boat-mounted sonar platforms and other tools to conduct a grid search for the vessel. Once the vessel has been located, the agencies determine whether a recovery operation will be feasible, police said.