Body of Ore. boater missing since Sunday recovered; drowned in accident

Searchers recovered from the Columbia River Wednesday the body of a Sandy, Ore., man who had been missing since Sunday.

Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office river patrol deputies responded Wednesday afternoon to a report of a body seen floating in the river near the eastern tip of McGuire Island, according to the sheriff’s office. A boater spotted the body and called it in.

Deputies and the Portland Fire Bureau recovered the body of Brian Louis Schmitz, 52, and brought it to Chinook Landing.

The Multnomah County Medical Examiner’s Office determined Schmitz had drowned, and it was an accident.

The search for a missing boater began after emergency crews were first sent out Sunday morning, to a report of a boater in distress. A small fishing boat had been found adrift with no one on board.

Officials found no one was home at his house, his car parked at the river and evidence — fishing tackle, ice — that someone had been in the boat.