Man’s body found in Green River

Array

May 1, 2009 8:53 am
Officers from the Kent and Tukwila Fire departments and Tukwila police huddle underneath the Strander Boulevard bridge on the banks of the Green River after the Kent Fire Boat retrieved the body of a man from the water.
Officers from the Kent and Tukwila Fire departments and Tukwila police huddle underneath the Strander Boulevard bridge on the banks of the Green River after the Kent Fire Boat retrieved the body of a man from the water.

A rescue crew from the Kent Fire Department helped recover the body of an adult male Thursday from the Green River in Tukwila, just north of Kent.

A passerby saw the body at about 10:30 a.m. in the river near the 600 block of Strander Boulevard, said Mike Murphy, Tukwila Police spokesman.

There was no identification on the body, Murphy said. The King County Medical Examiner’s Office took the body to investigate the cause of death as well as to identify the body.

“There was nothing to raise suspicion of foul play,” Murphy said. “We’ll wait until the medical examiner determines the cause of death and how long the body has been in the water before we determine if there’s a case. We know very little at this point.”

Law enforcement officers told the family of Austin Fuda, the 13-year-old boy who was swept away in Green River after a car accident in November, that the body discovered Thursday does not appear to be Austin’s, relatives said.

Fuda remains missing and presumed drown. He was a passenger in a car that plunged into the Green River near the Auburn Golf Course on Nov. 7. King County Sheriffs searched the river for days but was unable to find the boy. Hazardous river conditions canceled concentrated searches throughout the winter months.

The accident killed Fuda’s cousin, 2-year-old Hunter Beaupre. The two boys were passengers in a Volkswagen Beetle driven by a 16-year-old girl, a relative of one of the boys, who lost control of the car along a windy stretch of Green River Road Southeast. The girl tried to save the boys, but the river swept the car 100 yards downstream.