CHICAGO _ Friends of a boater who disappeared Monday, prompting a search that left a Fire Department diver dead, located a body in the South Branch of the Chicago River on Friday while searching for the missing man, they said.
The body was spotted in the river west of Damen Avenue about 1:15 p.m. Friday, and the group called 911, a law enforcement source confirmed. The police marine unit was dispatched to bring the body out of the water, a police spokesman said.
The body was found between the shore and a barge, according to the source.
Clothing on the body appeared to match that worn by Alberto Lopez, 28, who fell off a boat Monday night into the river. During the ensuing search, Fire Department diver Juan Bucio died.
The identity of the person whose body was found Friday had not yet been confirmed, but friends said they believe it to be Lopez.
"We recognized him right away," said Ricardo Sanchez, 19. "We didn't believe it. We kept trying to make sure it was him. The waves pushed up the water and we'd seen ... his clothes and we'd seen his face, and we knew it was him."
"It felt really bad seeing him there," said Fernando Reyes, brother of Marco Reyes who owned the boat Lopez fell from.
Fernando Reyes, 33, said his brother was driving the boat when Lopez fell off Monday and that he had already left the scene.
"He's still traumatized," he said of his brother.
Lopez's family and friends were not happy with official efforts to look for the body, leading them to organize their own search.
"We had to do it ourselves," Sanchez said. "So we went out and we started looking for him."
Members of the search party used Marco Reyes' boat in an effort that began Thursday. They set out again early Friday.
A police spokeswoman said Friday morning that the marine unit was expected to continue the search for Lopez's body Friday.
As police gathered around the retrieved body Friday afternoon, about 10 of Lopez's friends watched nervously from the sidewalk of the Eleanor Boathouse at Park 571 that was cordoned off.
Reyes said the body would be identified by police at the morgue. After that, he said, Lopez's loved ones plan to send the body back to Mexico, where Lopez's fiancee lives with their three kids.
"She was very depressed," Reyes said of Lopez's fiancee.
