Country singer Craig Strickland has been declared missing following a duck-hunting trip in stormy conditions with a friend who turned up dead.
Officials began searching for Strickland — lead singer of country-rock group Backroad Anthem — and his 22-year-old friend Chase Morland on Sunday after they failed to return from duck-hunting on Kaw Lake, according to NBC affiliate KFOR.
Morland's body was found in the lake on Monday, according to a statement from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.
A second day of searching for Strickland, 29, was called off for the night Tuesday as darkness fell, the Highway Patrol said, and would resume Wednesday morning. Aircraft searched along the shoreline, with no luck, the patrol said.
Backroad Anthem said on its Facebook page that the band members were "hoping against the odds" and "trying to think of a scenario where [Strickland] is still alive."
Oklahoma has been hit hard by a recent spate of deadly storms.
A message posted on what appeared to be Morland's Twitter account foreshadowed the tragedy: "In case we don't come back, @BackroadCRAIG and I are going right through Winter Storm Goliath to kill ducks in Oklahoma."
