airboat recovers man’s body in Camden

posted: 08 March 2016
by: Stephen Betts

LINCOLNVILLE, Maine — The body of a Camden man was recovered Tuesday morning from Megunticook Lake, where the Maine Warden Service said he went through the ice the evening before.

Cpl. John MacDonald of the Maine Warden Service said Trueman Moore, 20, of Camden walked onto the lake from Wiley Neck on Monday evening.

MacDonald said Moore and three friends were walking along the shore around dusk when Moore walked out onto the ice. The ice was extremely thin and there was considerable open water. The warden service corporal said Moore’s friends tried to convince the young man not to go onto the ice, but he did and they lost sight of him. They did not see him fall through but reported him missing at about 8 p.m. when he did not return, MacDonald reported in a news release issued early Tuesday afternoon.

Lincolnville firefighters and the warden service went to the lake and found where Moore had gone through the ice, MacDonald said. The first responders presumed that Moore was in the lake because there were no signs that he made it back to shore. Because of dangerous conditions, the effort to recover his body was called off that night but resumed Tuesday morning.

Two divers from the Maine Warden Service and an air boat went out at 9 a.m. Tuesday from the public landing on Route 105 in Camden to get to the area of Wiley Neck in Lincolnville where the body was recovered, MacDonald said.

“Footprints found on the melting ice surface led game wardens to a specific location to begin searching,” MacDonald reported Tuesday.

The body was recovered from about 22 feet of water at 9:49 a.m. about 100 feet from land on the Lincolnville section of the lake. The water temperature was 30 degrees, according to MacDonald.

Wardens still are investigating why Moore went out onto the dangerously thin ice. MacDonald said the warden service was working with the medical examiner’s office to determine whether an autopsy would be performed.