Body believed to be that of teen who drowned in 1972
Who was it?
Divers Wednesday found more of what officials believe are the skeletal remains of a boy who drowned in Whitefish Lake 33 years ago.
Searching an area near Mackinaw Point, two men from the Flathead County Dive Team brought up the top part of a skull they found 62 feet below the water's surface.
"We found it pretty easily," said diver Jordan White, a sheriff's deputy. It took only about 20 minutes of swimming, he said.
He and diver Dusty Dusterhoff boated out to the area where teenagers David Almos and Jay Richardson drowned in the summer of 1972. Richardson's body was recovered, but Almos' never was, even after searches in the 1980s.
Last month, a fisherman snagged a sock containing human bones, reviving hopes that Almos' body could still be found and recovered.
White said he and Dusterhoff dropped a marker in the area the fisherman said he was when he hooked the sock.
From the marker, they began a circular search pattern.
"After about three revolutions, Dusty found a portion of leg protruding from the mud," White said.
Visibility is about 6 feet at the bottom of the lake.
"As soon as you touch anything on the bottom, it goes to zero," White said. A thick layer of mud and silt has impeded past searches, obscuring divers' vision when the muck is stirred up.
White said he is excited by the find and plans to return Sunday to complete the job he and Dusterhoff started Wednesday.
Search-and-rescue members and another half dozen divers will try to extricate the bones, he said.
"We won't be able to see," once the mud is disrupted by removing the first bone, he said. But with a line run from the boat to the site, a squad of divers working together should be able "to get the rest of them by feel."
White said he hopes to make the recovery for the benefit of Almos' family.