Cast of Glee gather at California lake where Naya Rivera vanished as police recover a body

1.1k

View
comments

A body has been recovered in the search for missing Glee actress Naya Rivera who vanished on a California lake and was feared to have drowned six days ago.  

Authorities are yet to formally confirm that the body is that of the 33-year-old. 

They announced the grim discovery on Twitter, saying: ‘A body has been found at Lake Piru this morning. 

‘The recovery is in progress.’

The actress’s family rushed to the lake on Monday morning and some of her Glee castmates, including Heather Norris, were also there.  

Rivera vanished on Wednesday on Lake Piru after taking a pontoon boat out on the water with her four-year-old son Josey. 

A Ventura police officer told DailyMail.com it was ‘gut-wrenching’ and ‘devastating’ to see the family’s grief.

Ventura Sheriff’s Department Sergeant Marta Bugarin said the county’s search and rescue team found the body floating in Lake Piru at about 9.10am on Monday. 

‘We’ve had the teams out in the water for the last six days and this morning a little bit after 9am they found a body floating in the water,’ Sgt Bugarin said. ‘It was found in the north part of the lake.

‘A search and rescue team and dive team were out, there was about 20 people out this morning continuing the search effort. They were out in a boat and spotted the body floating.’

Sgt Bugarin told DailyMail.com the family rushed to the lake as soon as police called them.

‘The family weren’t there at the time but they’ve been notified obviously, and they’re here now,’ she said. ‘Now we’re in day six, it’s heavy for everybody involved. 

‘Yes, we’re doing a job but we’re also humans and we can empathize with the family and what they’re going through. 

‘Especially being here and seeing the family the past few days, it’s pretty gut-wrenching as you can imagine. ‘Just the sadness around it all, it’s incredibly sad. 

‘Us as well, obviously not to the extent on the family but it takes a toll on everyone’s emotions. Their grieving is pretty devastating.’ 

The family were pictured on Saturday stricken with grief, running fully clothed into the lake and splashing the water on their faces, as search and rescue teams armed with sonar equipment and sniffer dogs scoured its murky bed.

Last week one of the dive team explained to DailyMail.com that gases released from a corpse decomposing underwater would cause it to rise up to the surface, usually after four to seven days unless it was caught on branches or tangled in vegetation underwater.

Police said the county’s medical examiner has been called, and will take the body back to their office to be officially identified and to perform an autopsy.

The Sheriff’s Department would not release any further details about the body. 

On Monday, they honed in on a cove where the actress had taken a photograph of Josey and sent it to a relative 90 minutes before he was found on the boat. 

They focused their search on that cove on Monday. 

The actress grew up 20 miles from the lake and was familiar with it, police sources said last week. 

She thought of it as her ‘sanctuary’, despite it being known for rip currents and icy waters that can overpower swimmers.  

A press conference about Monday’s discovery has been scheduled for 2pm local time. 

On Sunday, Naya’s distraught family were seen at the lake trying to assist investigators in their search for her. 

Josey told police that his mother ‘jumped in’ and never came back up to the surface.  

He was wearing a life jacket but the actress’s was on the pontoon when it was recovered. 

‘There was a picture sent to a family member that showed the boy on the boat by a cove. We found where that cove was,’ Robert Inglis of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office Search & Rescue Team told Us Weekly. 

He previously said: ‘What I suspect is that the winds kicked up. 

‘Those pontoon boats are very light, and when you push them, it can get away from you. She might’ve tried to swim after the boat. But that’s all speculation. Once we do locate her, that’ll answer a lot more questions.’ 

Police have not shared the image and it’s unclear which cove it was taken in. Over the weekend, they asked members of the public not to go looking for the star themselves in the dangerous water.   

The actress’s father George on Sunday appeared to help co-ordinate the hunt for his missing daughter after police confirmed ‘nothing came’ of their search of cabins along Lake Piru.  

On Sunday, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office had announced that cabins on the banks of the lake would be searched after social media users theorized that Rivera could have ended up in one.

But Sgt. Shannon King later told People: ‘They’re not occupied. Nothing came of it. There’s no evidence to say she left the water. It appears to be 100 percent just a tragic drowning.’ 

The lake itself is 1,200 acres and can reach depths of up to 130 feet. 

In it, authorities point to a barely visible tree limb highlighting the challenges divers are facing in trying to find the missing mother-of-one. 

With almost zero visibility, human divers are resorting to searching by feel, meaning it could take several days before crews can locate her body, Eric Buschow, Ventura County Sheriff’s Office spokesman, said at a press conference Friday evening.

‘We don’t know if she’s going to be found five minutes from now or five days from now, so we’re still going to be continuing this effort,’ he said. 

‘The visibility in the water is one to two feet,’ Buschow added. 

Before authorities confirmed that the body was Rivera’s, fruends