Nearly two weeks after a man disappeared, Plain City police say crews have recovered his body from a retention pond where the vehicle he was driving crashed.
Police said that at around 4 a.m. April 24, officers responded to a single-vehicle crash on Lafayette-Plain City Road in Madison County. Police observed tire marks and learned that the vehicle somehow lost control and went into a retention pond. The vehicle was “completely submerged,” and search and rescue operations began immediately, police said.
Authorities were able to pull the vehicle from the pond, but it was empty, police said. Dive teams from Marysville police, the city’s Division of Fire and Washington Township Fire Department searched for the driver of the vehicle in the murky pond waters but found nothing, police said.
Officers continued to follow up on possible leads to locate the man who was driving the vehicle, according to police.
Sometime after the crash, a missing person report was filed for the man with Columbus police, and Plain City police labeled him as a missing person. Throughout the week following the crash, police continued working with Marysville police and the fire department to map out a search and recovery plan for the pond.
Police said the search was difficult because of the water conditions and “extreme limited underwater visibility.” Police also utilized a boat equipped with sonar capabilities to search the pond, but again found nothing, police said.
But just before 2 p.m. on May 6 – nearly two weeks after the crash – Plain City officers spotted something floating in the retention pond. Officers realized that it was a body and notified the Pleasant Valley Joint Fire District to conduct a rescue operation. After the body was pulled from the water, the Madison County Coroner’s Office was notified and responded to the scene.
The man was identified as Charlie Thach, 26, of Plain City. Officials have not identified a cause of death. Thach’s body was transferred to the Montgomery County Medical Examiner’s Office for a full autopsy and to determine the cause of death, police said.
The Washington Township Fire Department Dive Team searched the pond and did not find any additional victims, according to police. The Ohio State Highway Patrol is leading the investigation into the crash, police said.
Reporter Shahid Meighan can be reached at smeighan@dispatch.com, at ShahidMeighan on X, and at shahidthereporter.dispatch.com on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Plain City police find body in retention pond nearly 2 weeks after crash
Reporting by Shahid Meighan, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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