The body of a Navy sailor who disappeared last month after he left a bar in Waukegan, Illinois, was found Wednesday in Lake Michigan near the city’s harbor, authorities said.
Seamus Gray, 21, who was last seen March 18 when video showed him leaving a bar, was found in the lake by electrical utility workers near the Waukegan Harbor, the Lake County Coroner’s Office said in a statement.
The workers spotted the body shortly after 7 p.m. Wednesday and flagged down police who were conducting a nearby traffic stop.
“The utility workers were doing routine work near the Harbor and reported they saw what they believed to be a body in the water. An officer from the Waukegan Police Department was able to bring the deceased to shore,” the statement said.
An autopsy was completed Thursday, it said.
“Preliminary results indicate that Mr. Gray died from Drowning. There is no evidence of significant injury which would have contributed to his death,” the statement said. “The incident remains under investigation by the Waukegan Police Department, the US Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the Lake County Coroner’s Office.”
Waukegan, on the shores of Lake Michigan, is about 42 miles north of Chicago.
Gray did not report back to the Navy when he was supposed to, police said. He was reported missing March 21.
Gray was assigned to Naval Station Great Lakes, which is on the Lake Michigan coast south of Waukegan, police said.
Video showed Gray near Sheridan Road and Washington Street at 1:40 a.m. on the day he disappeared, police said.
Security video from outside a bar appears to show some type of interaction Gray had with possibly two other people.
Searchers last month focused on the lakefront, by land and in the air. Video showed Gray’s progression from the downtown area to the lakefront, police said.
NBC Chicago reported security video from outside the Ibiza nightclub on the morning Gray disappeared shows him standing and talking to a group of people. The video also shows Gray on the ground. At another point, someone in the group appears to grab Gray’s wallet from his pocket but then throws it back at him, the station reported.
Later in the video, Gray is seen taking off in a nearby alley.
Ibiza manager Adrian Hernandez said at a news conference that Gray entered the nightclub twice last month but was escorted out for being too intoxicated.
Gray got into at least two altercations outside the bar, Hernandez said, according to NBC Chicago.