BLOOMINGDALE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Authorities say a prowler is presumed drowned after a canoe he used to flee from sheriff’s deputies overturned in a frigid lake in southwestern Michigan.
The Van Buren County sheriff’s department says deputies responded Wednesday to reports of a person looking into windows and trying to break into a vehicle in Bloomingdale Township. They followed footprints in the snow and spotted the man coming out of a barn.
Authorities followed the man toward Muskrat Lake, where he got into the canoe. He was told to return to land, but he kept going until the canoe overturned. Deputies in a rowboat tried unsuccessfully Wednesday to find him before divers searched the lake.
The man’s name wasn’t immediately known. The sheriff’s department says additional searches were planned for Thursday.