Finding the body of Joshua D. Roach, 39, in the wake of a crash was a trying effort for dozens of deputies, auxiliary, and community volunteers including family of the deceased.
A family member is the person who located the body.
Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn said Roach’s mother was on the scene when he arrived shortly after the body was discovered and she was able to identify her son.
The search began when deputies were called to the scene of a single-vehicle on Poe Road just east of Range Line Road, in Plain Township shortly before 7 a.m. Tuesday. They found an Oldsmobile Intrigue that had coming to rest upside down in a water-filled ditch.
The back window of the car was broken out.
The search began then. At first, Wasylyshyn said, the area around the crash site was searched because of the possibility that Roach had been able to exit the ditch and sought shelter in a nearby building. The concern was that he was disoriented after the crash.
Bulletins were distributed through the media and the Code Red system seeking any information.
They also searched the ditch, Wasylyshyn said, but the water was high, fast moving ad murky.
The search, including the use of drones, focused on the drainage ditch as the week went on, and no one reported seeing the driver.
Wasylyshyn said the spot, a 1.5 mile north from the crash location where the body was found, had been looked at earlier, but the water was too high to reveal the body. By Saturday the water level has gone down to about two or three feet deep.
“Every day we did something to locate the body,” Wasylyshyn said.
