Body Of East Texas Drowning Victim Recovered

John Mitchell

Search teams Monday recovered the body of John Mitchell, 50, of Marshall, who drowned Friday afternoon at Lake O’ the Pines. They found him around 1:00 pm. Texas Parks and Wildlife Captain Quint Balkcom of Tyler said on Saturday that search teams were concentrating on the area near Lake O’ the Pines’ dam. He turned 51 on Friday and, his family told the Marshall newspaper that he wanted to spend his birthday fishing with his friend, Keefer Boyd. They released Boyd from Christus Good Shepherd in Marshall Sunday morning. He said that he and Mitchell were not on the water for more than 20 to 30 minutes when their aluminum boat pressed into the rocks on East Lake near the Spillway. It was at that moment they took on water and stranding them inside the near-freezing waters.