GRANTHAM — Police are investigating an unattended death after a body turned up in the water last Friday near the Eastman Pond Boat Launch.
Just before 8 a.m., Eastman Community Association staff, while making regular rounds on the property, saw something floating in the water near the shore of Eastman Pond and reported it to police.
In addition to an overturned canoe, employees noticed an object out by the dam was “more than just a boat” and contacted authorities right away, Eastman general manager and CEO Steve Schneider said Monday by phone.
“This is, I think, the first death that folks can remember that’s happened on the lake, at least in recent memory,” said Schneider. “This is definitely a rare event.”
Local and state police, firefighters and marine patrol arrived on the scene and recovered a dead body from inside the boat near the dam, Grantham police chief John Parsons confirmed Friday by phone.
In terms of a possible cause of death, Parsons said police can’t speculate without more information from the medical examiner, which is pending. While the timeline is unclear, it’s possible that the autopsy occurred Monday.
Shane Camp, who works for landscaping service Gilson’s Property Management, believes that the victim’s canoe could have been sucked into the dam, which transfers water into the Eastman Brook, he said Friday while working near the scene.
Currently, the death is considered suspicious because there was seemingly no one there to witness it, said Parsons.
Grantham police are still working through the process of identifying the victim and notifying their family, which Parson said can take a matter of hours, days or weeks depending on the case. The department intends to keep their information confidential until further notice.
“The last thing anyone wants is to find out about their loved one’s death in a Facebook post,” said Parsons.
After most officers left the scene Friday afternoon, two New Hampshire Fish and Game divers searched the water for additional evidence, finding none.
Police reopened the boat launch Friday around 3:30 p.m. because they believe they found all of the evidence needed at the scene. The divers were not looking for anything specific, state trooper Taylor Sarette said during the search.
Schneider feels this discovery in “such a highly visible place” will take the community time to process, and Eastman intends to let law enforcement do its job and assist as needed.
“It’s not something that happens every day here, and so it’s natural for there to be some concern and some questions,” he said.
