Naya Rivera, 33, gets accidentally drowned after renting the boat along with her four-year-old son at the camping and recreational hotspot around an hour’s drive northwest of L.A.
Los Angeles: US officials on Monday found the body of “Glee” actress Naya Rivera within the Californian lake where she drowned last week during a ship trip together with her four-year-old son.
Rivera’s body was retrieved and an initial examination found no evidence of evil or suicide, Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub told a news conference.
“We are confident the body we found is that of Naya Rivera,” said Ayub, pointing to the situation, appearance, clothing, and condition of the body.
The Police took her body to a medical examiner’s office for a full autopsy and confirmation of her identity from dental records, though no other missing persons are reported at Lake Piru, he added.
Rivera, 33, gets accidentally drowned after renting the boat together with her young son at the camping and recreational hotspot around an hour’s drive northwest of L.A.
She was missing since Wednesday afternoon, and a huge search team which involves divers, patrol boats, and helicopters were launched after they spotted her sleeping son drifting alone in a boat on the lake.
As per her son Rivera had helped him into the boat before “he looked back and saw her disappear under the surface of the water,” said the sheriff.
Ayub pointed to the lake’s strong currents as a possible explanation for a casualty.
“The idea perhaps being that the boat started drifting. It had been unanchored which she mustered enough energy to urge her son back onto the boat, but not enough to save herself,” he said.
The lake has been closed to the general public since Wednesday, with around 100 personnel, including the US Coast Guard and rescuers from neighboring counties, joining the search.
Search teams used footage from video messaging calls Rivera made up of the boat before her disappearance, also as interviews together with her son, to scour portions of the lake bottom for her remains over six days, with no success.
“We believe she was concealed within a number of the shrubberies on the ground bed of the lake” before eventually floating to the surface thanks to natural decomposition, said Ayyub.
With but one foot (30 centimeters) of visibility underwater in daylight, the recovery operation was a “complex search effort” even with the utilization of sonar equipment, he said.
Rivera played a role as a high school cheerleader Santana Lopez in “Glee.”
She starred for 6 seasons within the wildly popular musical television series set during a US high school that led to 2015.
This is not the first time when “Glee” cast has been struck by tragedy.
Actor Mark Salling took his own life in 2018, weeks before being sentenced for possession of kid pornography.
Canadian castmate Cory Monteith died in July 2013 of an overdose of medicine and alcohol.
