The body of the 24-year-old college basketball player who has been missing since April was found Wednesday in Lake Lanier, authorities confirmed.
Dorian Adonis Pinson’s body was located around 11:20 a.m. in 117 feet of water and recovered by Bruce’s Legacy Search and Recover — a Wisconsin company that specializes in locating drowning victims — about an hour later, Georgia Department of Natural Resources spokesman Mark McKinnon told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an email. Hall County deputies, the U.S. Corps of Engineers and DNR wardens also assisted with the recovery.
Pinson was a senior at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee, where he played on the basketball team. He had previously graduated from Legacy Charter High School in his hometown, Greenville, South Carolina.
On April 18, Pinson had gone on an excursion on the lake on a rented pontoon boat when he and two others jumped or fell from the boat, McKinnon said. That was when Pinson went underwater and did not resurface.
“They were unable to make it back to the boat due to wind,” the DNR spokesman told the AJC in April.
The two others were rescued by a passing boat. The search for Pinson in the 130 feet deep water continued for five days, McKinnon said. On the sixth day, the search transitioned to surface searches and shore sweeps, which continued daily, he said.
Credit: GoFundMe
Credit: GoFundMe
A friend of the Pinson family set up a GoFundMe page in early June to hire a private diving team to assist the DNR in rescuing Pinson’s body.
“I pray hard they will find Dorian, yet I pray even harder that he is alive and well. I just want to be able to give him one more hug. My broken heart goes out to Alicia and the entire Pinson family,” a donator who contributed $250 wrote.
Pinson’s body was sent to the GBI for an autopsy, McKinnon said.
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