The Coast Guard reported Wednesday, June 22, that it has located one body in the ongoing search for a Sarasota, Florida, family that went missing Sunday.
“It’s with a heavy heart that I announce that at about 4:30 this afternoon one of our Coast Guard helicopters located a deceased person in the search area,” Captain Gregory Case of the U.S. Coast Guard said during a press conference late Wednesday.
Case did not state whether the body was male or female, though he did note that the body had been transported to local authorities for identification. The family has been notified.
“This is still an ongoing search and rescue and we still have three persons out there we are trying to locate, and we still have hope for that,” Case said.
Earlier in the day, the Coast Guard announced that it had discovered only debris, including six life jackets, a tarp, water bottles and a propane tank — but no bodies in its efforts to locate Ace Kimberly and his three teen kids, Rebecca, 17, Donny, 15, and Roger, 13.
The family of four was last seen Sunday, June 19, when they left Sarasota at 7 a.m. en route to Fort Myers for boat repairs. According to ABC News, at around 3 p.m., Kimberly called his brother to say that the boat was caught in 6-foot waves near Englewood, 30 miles from Sarasota.
Kimberly’s brother told the Coast Guard Tuesday that the father of three had called him to ask for weather reports from on land. The Associated Press reports that the brother said that Kimberly had indicated that they were sailing in “rough seas and thunderstorms.”
Kimberly and his children had been living in the boat for about a year.
