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ORLANDO, Fla. – A body was found Thursday as crews searched an Orange County retention pond after someone called 911 to report a teenager’s possible drowning near North Goldenrod Road and East Colonial Drive.
Homicide detectives and CSI are on the way to the scene.
Authorities have neither identified the body nor confirmed that it was the teenager they were searching for.
On Wednesday, 911 caller, Eric Wolfe, told dispatchers that he saw what appeared to be a teenage boy flailing his arms in the water while screaming, “It bit me. It bit me.”
“The only thing I could hear was, ‘Something bit me,’ and him screaming,” Wolfe said. “By the time I got out with the binoculars, he was kind of just fighting to stay above and he just sunk under.”
Wolfe said the teenager appeared to be struggling to stay afloat in the water before going fully under.
He said the victim was about 20 yards from the shoreline and never resurfaced.
“There are many alligators in there. There are probably four alligators that I’ve seen. There’s a big bull gator, probably about seven to nine feet,” Wolfe said.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said it received a report of a missing 15-year-old boy near Salem Drive and Marietta Street.
Officials later said they don’t know the exact age of the possible missing person. Orange County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Jeff Williamson said deputies knocked on doors in the neighborhood, but there didn’t appear to be anyone missing.
Despite “No Trespassing” signs around the fenced pond, residents said people still fish and swim there, even though it’s known for alligators.
“I used to fish in there. I stopped doing that about a year ago, once that gator got way too big and aggressive,” said resident Luis Cadiz.
Terri Branson, who lives near the pond, said she hopes everyone is safe.
We received a report of a missing 15-year-old boy near Salem Dr and Marietta St in Orlando. We, along with partner agencies including @OCFireRescue and @OrangeCoSheriff are on scene and actively searching a water body. Updates will be provided as info becomes available.
“We see gators here every single day. I mean, they’re different sizes, but one looks fairly large,” he said. “I know that’s why they’re trying to keep people out of the lake, because it is full of gators.”
Investigators spent hours searching the pond’s shoreline and its waters, but they ended their search at 8 p.m. Wednesday.
“A six-foot alligator, my understanding is that’s not large enough to take a grown man down. We don’t know if that’s the case or not, but we do know the witness did indeed hear, ‘It bit me,’ as he was going into the water,” Williamson said.
Orange County Fire Rescue and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office helped with the search.
FWC brought in its nuisance gator truck. Deputies said a small alligator was spotted in the retention pond, but there is no evidence the animal is related to the possible drowning.
The Detroit News reported Wednesday night that recently hired Detroit Lions head coach Matt Patricia was indicted on a sexual assault charge in 1996, when he was in college. The case never went to trial after, according to authorities, the victim decided not to testify due to feeling she could not “face the pressures or stress of a trial.”
The News contacted Lions team president Rod Wood, and he told the paper that the team was unaware of the indictment when they hired Patricia because their background check only covered criminal convictions. But that statement doesn’t address just how easy it would have been for the Lions to find the indictment.
Deadspin found it in 30 seconds. Just plug Patricia’s name into the criminal record search function in Nexis, a ubiquitous public records database and the first step for most large organizations’ background research into any individual about whom information is sought. There’s no reason anyone working on background checks on behalf of the Lions wouldn’t have Nexis, if not something much more powerful. The results of the search can be seen above.
While the language of the charge is different—and Nexis can occasionally get details wrong—much of it lines up: the name, the birthdate, and the case number is the same as those cited in the News article. At the very least, it’s a flag to go pull this case file and see what happened, which the News did. The Detroit Lions, which Forbes estimates to be worth $1.7 billion? It sure seems like they didn’t.
Deadspin staff writer Lauren Theisen contributed to this report.
