A Logan resident's body was found Friday in the Hocking River after a weeklong search.
Joe F. Spaulding, 24, jumped into the Hocking River almost a week earlier after he and his cousin Sam Collins got into a fight with someone at Sam's Place, 885 W. Hunter St., a tavern in Logan. Spaulding and Collins had a history of past scuffles with this same person, Logan City Police Lt. Greg Cluley said.
After breaking a window of a vehicle in the parking lot, Collins and Spaulding ran from authorities down Washington Street, which is a few blocks from where they later jumped into the Hocking River, he said.
They got about halfway up the river and the current was just too strong and Sam made it to the side of the river
Cluley said. Sam ran to a payphone and called Joe's family and they ran to the police department to report it.
Spaulding's family had reported him missing, but according to police reports there had been no sign of his body until now.
Basically we received a call (May 28) in reference to a passerby that saw something floating in the river that appeared to be a body said Tom McKnight, acting police chief of the Nelsonville Police Department. Our investigators tracked the body to its final destination.
Athens County Sheriff's Office Deputies and Hocking College Police helped pull the body out of the water and onto the bike path 11 miles from where Collins and Spaulding had entered the water, according to a sheriff's office report.
Aaron Dickison, a first-year student at Hocking Police Academy, said he was on his way to class when he saw officers pulling the body out of the Hocking River. He was amazed at the amount of debris in the river from the recent rainwater.
The swelling of the river's banks probably had something to do with Spaulding's death, McKnight said.
I believe at current levels with (the Hocking) being raised
the currents are very strong
he said. It could be very dangerous for someone to go in swimming. Even at normal levels it can be extremely dangerous at times.
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