Third body found in Strawberry Reservoir

Published: Thursday, Nov. 16 2006 5:48 p.m. MST

A third body was discovered Thursday in Strawberry Reservoir, but once again it was not of the Orem couple that searchers originally set out to find last week.

While family members of Steven and Catheryn Roundy wait for word that the bodies of their loved ones have been found, four other families are now also grieving as the discovery of other bodies has opened old wounds.

On Nov. 10, searchers recovered the body of Drake McMillan, 46, who was last seen swimming in the cold lake in 2001 before drowning.

Wednesday, searchers recovered the body of a man off the bottom of the reservoir, nearly 90 feet deep. That body was found about 3 p.m. and authorities were able to bring it to the surface three hours later.

Like the two previous recoveries, sonar equipment led to the discovery of a third body Thursday and a boat about 30 feet away from where Wednesday's body was found, said Wasatch County Sheriff's Capt. John Rogers.

Both the bodies found Wednesday and Thursday were believed to be two of three Utah County men in their early '20s who disappeared in a boating accident in 1995 under similar circumstances as the Roundys. The body of the third man has not been found.

Austin M. Lloyd, Phillip L. Shepherd and Daniel J. Maycock were all presumed to have drowned during the 1995 accident. Now, their families are reliving the tragic incident again.

"This is as hard as the first time," Tom Lloyd, Austin's father, said Thursday from his home in Spanish Fork. "It's heartache. Pure heartache."

While Lloyd is facing his own heartache again, he said he also has a lot of sympathy for the Roundy family.

"I see those poor people out there going through it ... my heart goes out to them," he said. "I feel so damn sorry for them. I hope it don't take 11 years to find them."

The Roundys were sharing a 14-foot aluminum boat with with Steven's brother, Kimball Roundy, and a friend, Mike New, last week. The two others made it to shore, straggling barefoot two miles to a highway where they alerted a trooper to the plight of the couple.

The foursome had three life jackets between them, but none of them was wearing a jacket when the boat overturned, Rogers said.

Steven Roundy and his wife were last seen drifting away together, each with an arm through a life jacket, but they would have lost their grip on the jackets because of hypothermia in the frigid water, Rogers said.

Get The Deseret News Everywhere

Subscribe

Mobile

RSS