Body pulled from Lake Michigan near 31st Street Beach identified as missing boater
CHICAGO (CBS) — A body was recovered from Lake Michigan at 31st Street Beach Sunday afternoon, Chicago police say.
Police say the CPD Marine Unit pulled the male victim from the water around 12:45 p.m. The person was pronounced dead on the scene, and later identified as 40-year-old Lorenzo Tobin, who went missing after a boat capsized, leaving Tobin missing and three others hospitalized.
The United States Coast Guard said it received calls Friday about a 25-foot double-decker pleasure yacht capsizing and then sinking. The boat Tobin was on flipped around 7:33 p.m., just south of 31st Street Harbor. More than a dozen people were on the boat for a birthday party.
One woman on board said they felt the boat heavily rocking before it capsized and sent everyone on board into the water. She said most of the people on board could not swim.
Tobin's wife says her husband was there to help with the party and was a strong swimmer.
CBS News Chicago's Shardaa Gray was alongside the family Sunday as they were waiting for answers and made a startling discovery—a body in the water.
"This is just so overwhelming," a distressed Leslie Jackson-Tobin said as she waited by the scene of the crash for word about her husband. "I just feel like something needs to be done. Like, why isn't anybody here?"
The boat was still in the water. Tobin's sister, Charlotte Smith, said they were out there Saturday, and people were being disrespectful.
"It was people over here, like, shooting videos. Like social media," she said. "To know that your loved one is out there, and people are out here partying where a tragic moment happened like that is traumatizing."
Shortly after the family spoke with CBS News Chicago, another family member noticed a body in the water. Gray called police immediately. Family yelled at boaters who continued to come out of the harbor. The body was in the path of the entrance.
"Everybody I talked to is telling me that he was helping people who had fallen into the water or who were trapped. He's giving them life vests," Jackson-Tobin said. "And I just don't understand how, like what happened to him."
A family friend told CBS News Chicago that most of the people were standing on the right side of the boat, causing it to flip over.
Police are still investigating.
This is one of two boating incidents at 31st Street Harbor within a few hours. A man died in the other incident, which police say is unrelated.
