Divers Recover Body From Truck In Detroit River

WYANDOTTE (WWJ/AP) - The body of a 54-year-old woman has been recovered from a submerged truck that onlookers saw plunge into the Detroit River Monday evening.

Divers recovered the body early Tuesday morning from the river bottom, several hours after the pickup went into the river in Wyandotte's Bishop Park, near Oak Street and Biddle Avenue.

Witnesses say the truck drove at high speeds from a parking lot over grass, onto a pedestrian walkway and through a railing.

"(She) was sitting in a parking space and then just accelerated over the curb about 75 feet," said Bill LaBeau, a Wyandotte resident. "(The truck) went through the fence at the river then into the water."

Doris Michaels, who witnessed the incident, said she thinks the woman intentionally drove into the river. Michaels, like other witnesses, said the woman turned and smiled at people just as the vehicle slammed into the water.

"The window was half down when she went in the water, she didn't sink right away, and they were telling her 'Get out, get out!' and she had like this half-smile on her face. So, this was something she had made up her mind to do," she said.

Police Chief Dan Grant said the incident appears to be a suicide based on the accounts of numerous witnesses.

The woman's name was not immediately released.

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