Steve McQueen
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MSU police consulting with water experts to aid in river search efforts for Brendan Santo
“We have investigative leads that are pointing toward the river,” he said. “We don’t want to lock ourselves into an absolute with that situation, you know? We have used sonar as well as canines in our search of the river, which has increased our interest level in the river.”
MSU police have explored multiple options to enhance the search around the river, Rozman said. One of the ideas at one point was damming the river to make things easier for Michigan State Police divers, he said, but that option was quickly ruled out due to potential flooding damage that would occur across the MSU campus.
The challenges in finding Santo in the water include the river’s fast current, depth and lack of visibility, Rozman said. Most challenging, he said, has been the debris and obstacles underwater that are “entanglement hazards” for divers, and possibly Santo if he did indeed fall in the river. “There’s concrete piled upon concrete,” Rozman said. “Bikes and barricades and all kinds of stuff. Trees and limbs and just this big heap of mess that the divers consider entanglement hazards.”
Rozman also warned that if Santo did fall in the river, the recovery of a body may takes months. He pointed to the New Year’s Eve 1997 disappearance of 21-year-old Ryan Getz. It took three and a half months to find Getz’s body attached to a fallen tree in the Red Cedar River (Footprints at The River's Edge: 12/31/97: Ryan Getz, 21, East Lansing, MI)
“We have investigative leads that are pointing toward the river,” he said. “We don’t want to lock ourselves into an absolute with that situation, you know? We have used sonar as well as canines in our search of the river, which has increased our interest level in the river.”
MSU police have explored multiple options to enhance the search around the river, Rozman said. One of the ideas at one point was damming the river to make things easier for Michigan State Police divers, he said, but that option was quickly ruled out due to potential flooding damage that would occur across the MSU campus.
The challenges in finding Santo in the water include the river’s fast current, depth and lack of visibility, Rozman said. Most challenging, he said, has been the debris and obstacles underwater that are “entanglement hazards” for divers, and possibly Santo if he did indeed fall in the river. “There’s concrete piled upon concrete,” Rozman said. “Bikes and barricades and all kinds of stuff. Trees and limbs and just this big heap of mess that the divers consider entanglement hazards.”
Rozman also warned that if Santo did fall in the river, the recovery of a body may takes months. He pointed to the New Year’s Eve 1997 disappearance of 21-year-old Ryan Getz. It took three and a half months to find Getz’s body attached to a fallen tree in the Red Cedar River (Footprints at The River's Edge: 12/31/97: Ryan Getz, 21, East Lansing, MI)
