The body of a missing US Navy sailor was pulled from a harbor near Lake Michigan after he was last seen leaving a bar the day after St Patrick’s Day.
t 21, who went missing last month, has been found in Waukegan, Illinois, along the lake, officials said.
At around 7pm on Wednesday, Waukegan police officers were conducting a traffic stop near the Waukegan Harbor when utility workers flagged them down, according to police.
The ComEd workers were carrying out routine work near the harbor and reported that they saw what they believed to be a body in the water.
An officer entered the water to recover the body.
Seamus Gray (pictured), 21, who went missing last month, has been found in Waukegan, Illinois, along the lake, officials said. His mother Kerry Gray (pictured) initially flew from Florida to help with the search
In surveillance footage, the sailor is seen walking around by himself before he vanishes
The Waukegan Fire Department also responded and pulled the body further onto the shore.
Waukegan Police Department Chief Edgardo Navarro said the body fitted Gray’s physical description.
The clothes on the body also matched his description, WGN9 reported.
The Lake County coroner later confirmed that the body was Gray’s, according to the outlet.
An autopsy has been scheduled.
Gray was last seen leaving a bar in Waukegan on March 18, the day after St. Patrick’s Day.
Police said he and his friends were intoxicated.
He was then sighted walking near the Metra station and did not turn up for his 2pm curfew, according to WGN9.
Police from Waukegan and North Chicago, firefighters, the Office of Naval Intelligence, water rescue crews and about 100 Navy personnel spent hours in the following days looking for Gray along the lakefront.
Gray’s mother, Kerry, also traveled to Waukegan from Florida to search for her son.
Detectives found video surveillance footage of Gray leaving Ibiza Bar on Genesee Street in Waukegan.
The video shows him leaving the bar alone through a back alley in a pink outfit, and he was later seen at the intersection of Sheridan Road and Washington Street around 1:40 am on March 18 and had not been seen or spoken to since leaving the bar.
Seamus Gray (pictured) was last seen leaving a bar in Waukegan on March 18, the day after St Patrick’s Day
‘Tomorrow I have to to do what no mother should ever have to do. I have to go on a foot search with the Police Department, Fire Department and many others who will join in to find my son Séamus Grays body,’ Kerry wrote on March 23
As I type this I’m trying not to throw up. I cannot sleep, and will not sleep until I have answers as to where my son is, and what happened to him,’ Kerry Gray wrote on social media
An investigation into the death remains ongoing.
Waukegan police, the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Lake County Coroner’s Office are involved.
Kerry posted on social media shortly after he went missing.
Kerry wrote: ‘The last 8 days have been grueling, nauseating, heartbreaking and quite honestly soul-crushing. ‘This boy is my heart, my world, my love of my life along with his little brother Deck.’
She added: ‘As I type this I’m trying not to throw up. I cannot sleep, and will not sleep until I have answers as to where my son is, and what happened to him.
In one post social media post in March, Kerry wrote that she and a friend were taking part in the investigations and were searching dumpsters for her son’s body.
‘Tomorrow I have to to do what no mother should ever have to do. I have to go on a foot search with the Police Department, Fire Department and many others who will join in to find my son Séamus Grays body,’ she wrote on March 23.
Kerry flew home to Florida a week after the disappearance and said she was ‘gutted’ over having to leave without having found her son or his body.
‘This boy is my heart, my world, my love of my life along with his little brother Deck,’ Kerry wrote in a post.
She said she had not been able to sleep and won’t be able to without answers as to where her son is or what happened to him.
‘Séamus was willing to die serving and defending our Country. Séamus was not supposed to go missing or possible die this way,’ Kerry wrote.
Anyone with info, send a tip through the WPD tip app, call the Tip-Line at 847-360-9001 or text keyword WPDTIP and message/tip to 847411.