During practice Wednesday afternoon the University’s men and women’s crew team found a body floating in the Connecticut River. The Hartford Police Department retrieved the body, which was later identified as missing person Patrick McCarthy.
“It was very sad and very tragic,” said Nancy Mulroy, the Public Information Officer for the Hartford Police Dept. “We certainly appreciate the courage and responsibility of the crew at Wesleyan.”
According to Luke Snelling ’05, co-captain of the men’s crew team, the body was found during the team’s warm-up practice. Members of the team saw the body floating in the water as they were running on the boardwalk near the river. They told the coaches, who then called the police.
“All we saw essentially was jeans and a windbreaker and someone’s back,” Snelling said.
Chris Skarinka ’07, who saw the body, said that it was floating backside up with a black and white jacket. Skarinka said that he did not see the body pulled from the water, although he said that it was clear that it was a man.
“The coaches told us to wait in the boathouse,” Skarinka said. “Then we immediately rowed. We wasted no time.”
The men’s crew team also found a body in the river in October 2002. At that time, the team was rowing in the water when the body floated past and was spotted, according to an Oct. 22, 2002 Argus article. In that case, the body was identified as a male around 30 years old who had died of drowning. According to the article, the body had been in the river three to four days and was also discovered floating on its back.
According to Snelling, incidents such as these are not common to Middletown area, but are instead more likely to occur upriver closer to Hartford.
“This has been many in a short while for around here,” Snelling said. “It’s a bit of a rarity.”
Skarinka, who as a freshman joined the crew team this year, said that he was not really fazed by the incident.
“Just hearing stories from last year, I didn’t expect to find another one,” Skarinka said. “It’s sort of become a tradition now.”
According to an April 1 news release from the Hartford Police, McCarthy was a Hartford resident and had been reported missing by his family since Jan. 26. After the initial missing person’s report, an investigation was conducted, but it resulted in no concrete results, according to the news release.
Once the body was found, police transported it to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Farmington, Conn. The cause of death was declared by the examiner to be “asphyxia due to drowning. Circumstances pending further investigation,” according to the news release.
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