The body of 13-year-old Griffin Prince was found Wednesday evening in the murky waters of Lake Lanier, nine days after the child was killed along with his brother in a boating accident, according to Channel 2 Action News.
Earlier, Hall County authorities disclosed that divers had found items that investigators said offered hope that they were closer to finding Griffin's body.
Although officials would not say what the recovered items were, the findings were considered a break in the intensive search, Capt. Mark Padgett with the state Department of Natural Resources said. Due to fatigue, divers had been planning to call off searches Wednesday and return Thursday morning, Padgett said.
The discovery of items came after days of searching for Griffin, a Buford teen killed June 18 along with his younger brother after a fishing boat collided with a pontoon boat driven by the boys' father, Mike Prince.
On Wednesday, the search entered its most perilous phase, as divers began literally climbing submerged trees as high as 60 feet, where they suspect the teen's body is trapped.
"It's something we usually avoid," Hall County Sheriff's Department spokesman Sgt. Stephen Wilbanks said of the area.
At those depths, divers encounter total darkness, along with the very real threat they'll get tangled up in what Wilbanks described as an underwater forest, strewn with discarded fishing lines.
"It can get spooky down there," said Wilbanks, who was on the Hall County dive team for two years. "When you're at the bottom of the lake it's pitch black."
Each diver has a partner, the only familiar comfort at those depths, where temperatures can plunge as low as 40 degrees — even in the heat of summer.
"It's a surreal environment," he said. "Every time you bump a tree it'll shake off years of sediment that just explodes in the water."
There's also the risk of decompression sickness, or the bends. Exhaustion comes physically and mentally, say veteran divers.
"Any diver will tell you this lake is a challenge to dive in," said Capt. Jason Shivers of the Forsyth County Fire Department, which is often called upon to search for bodies missing in Lake Lanier. The lake covers 39,000 acres, making it one of the largest bodies of water in the Southeast.
Jayne Mann can empathize with the Prince family.
In November 1995, Mann's close friend, Shirlee Ann Rothermel, disappeared from a houseboat docked on Holiday Marina near Lake Lanier Islands. Media coverage of the search for Rothermel's body was intense, just as it has been with Griffin.
"When you don't have closure, it makes it that much more difficult to deal with," said Mann, who had spoken with Rothermel the morning she disappeared. Divers eventually called off the search for the 45-year-old divorcee, though her body would surface not far from Holiday Marina roughly two months after she disappeared.
"The frustration of not finding her was too much to bear," said Mann, 66, who eventually left town to escape the media glare.
It's an even tougher grind for the Prince family, who haven't even been able to hold a memorial service for the two boys. They're waiting for Griffin to be recovered so the brothers "can be remembered together," according to the boys' step-grandmother, Deneice Prince.
Though it is man made, Lake Lanier was not conceived for recreation. It was created to provide a water and power supply for Atlanta but emerged as a popular getaway after reaching full pool in 1959.
At its deepest depths, exceeding 100 feet, a backwoods Atlantis survives.
Near Gainesville, off what is now Laurel Park, the remnants of Looper Speedway can be found. The concrete bleachers that surrounded the half-mile dirt track emerge every time a drought drains water from the lake.
Entire towns, such as Oscarville in Forsyth County, were swallowed by the waters that took five years to fill Lanier. Everything from barbed-wire fences to old chicken coops to covered bridges survive on the lake's floor.
Then there are the corpses never recovered or never known to be missing. No official records are kept by either the Georgia Department of Natural Resources or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but estimates by officials familiar with the lake put that number at between two and three dozen.
"It's safe to say there are bodies down there," said Chris Lovelady, a project operations manager with the Corps of Engineers.
Divers looking for Griffin — 10 from Hall County and seven from a special FBI unit — had extra incentive to keep the Boy Scout and dirt bike enthusiast from being included among those forever lost to the lake.
Besides giving closure to a grieving family, "this is still a criminal investigation," Wilbanks said.
Paul Bennett, who was driving the fishing vessel that collided with the Prince family's pontoon boat, already has been charged with boating under the influence and could face homicide charges, according to DNR officials.
Thanks to cadaver dog teams, the search has narrowed to within 200 feet of the crash site, not far from Buford Dam. Griffin's 9-year-old brother, Jake, died from massive injuries sustained when the boats collided.
Staff writer Alexis Stevens contributed to this report.
About the Author
