The body of the
kayaker who went missing from Porter Beach on Saturday, May 18, has been
recovered, roughly a quarter of a mile east of where he put into the water,
the Indiana Department of Natural Resources reported this morning.
Conservation
Officer Tyler Brock told the Chesterton Tribune that the body of
Jacob Sandy, 23, of South Bend, was found by an employee of Indiana Dunes
State Park around 7:15 a.m. today, washed up on the beach near the Pavilion.
Family subsequently
confirmed Sandy’s identity, Brock said.
Sandy was reported
missing by his family on May 18 after he failed to return home from
kayaking. On Tuesday, May 21, Porter Police found Sandy’s PT Cruiser in the
old Johnson Inn parking lot, while surveillance footage shot by cameras
installed on the National Park Service’s restroom facility--and by the
in-car camera of a Porter Police officer’s squad car--caught images of Sandy
at 3 or 3:30 p.m. Saturday assembling a foldable kayak.
Investigators
subsequently spoke to an eyewitness who, around the same time on Saturday,
observed a white kayak traveling north approximately a mile and a half from
the shoreline.
A kayak believed to
be Sandy’s was recovered on Tuesday, May 21, near New Buffalo, Mich., about
18 miles north of Porter Beach, the DNR reported yesterday. The person who
found it later contacted law enforcement after seeing an image of Sandy’s
kayak.