WEST MILFORD – Police in West Milford may have found the body of a woman reported missing since 2008 Wednesday afternoon while performing a diving drill at the Monksville Reservoir.
“They came across a submerged vehicle and contacted the New Jersey State Parks Police,” said Larry Hajna, a spokesman with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
Investigators called in a tow truck to pull the 2004 Toyota sedan out of the reservoir, and inside it they found the badly decomposed remains of a passenger, Hajna said.
“The license plate of the car matched that of a vehicle first reported missing on Easter Sunday, 2008,” he said.
Though the identity of the body has yet to be determined by the Northern Regional Medical Examiner, Dr. Roger A. Mitchell, Jr., Hajna confirmed that the car was registered to missing Oakland resident Cathy Ann DeBono.
The autopsy was scheduled for Thursday, Hajna said.
Authorities declined to say whether foul play is suspected.
Hajna said an initial report from a kayaker describing the body as being found in a bag was untrue.
“We’re just waiting to see what the results of the autopsy by the medical examiner reveal,” according to a the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office.