A remarkable search — Bodies of Orem couple found in Utah reservoir

Bodies believed to be those of an Orem couple were recovered from Strawberry Reservoir Friday, the climax of what turned into a remarkable nine-day "CSI"-like search after their fishing boat was swamped in a storm.

High-tech sonar and recovery equipment enabled searchers to find not only the bodies of Steven and Catheryn Roundy but unexpectedly those of three other people long missing in the reservoir. The body of another long-lost victim has yet to be located.

About 10 a.m. Friday, the Marine Sonic Technology Side Scan Sonar on board the Utah Department of Public Safety's boat detected the

fourth body found during the search. A submarine-like device, Deep Ocean Engineering's HD2+2 model, which is equipped with robot arms and hooks and can be operated from the surface, retrieved and carried the body to the top. It was that of a female.

"Because we don't have any other female bodies that we know of in the reservoir, we assumed it to be Catheryn's," said Wasatch County Sheriff's Capt. John Rogers.

The body was taken to the State Medical Examiner's Office for positive identification.

Searchers continued scanning the floor of the lake using the torpedo-shaped sonar device and a very short time later found a fifth body, this time a man. Again, the medical examiner will verify the man's identification, but Rogers said it is believed to be Steven Roundy.

New ways to search

Sonar equipment, belonging to Department of Public Safety, has aided in searches for several victims in Utah's waters during the past two years, including most recently at Utah Lake when a small plane crashed during a storm.

"For divers this would have been a very technical dive," said Utah Highway Patrol Lt. Doug McCleve, speaking for the Department of Public Safety. "They could only have been under the water for an eight- to 10-minute duration and would have had only 3- to 5-feet of visibility. They would not have covered a lot of ground."

During the week-and-a-half search of Strawberry, McCleve said their sonar equipment scanned nearly 12 square miles of ground beneath 90 feet of water.

"It was a lot like finding a needle in a haystack," he said. "There were a lot of unknowns, including the point where the boat went in, how long they may have swam, and where the wind was blowing that day."

Systematic planning allowed searchers to determine the best course of action, and McCleve said that "while searching those grid patterns, we just happened upon the other drowning victims."