Feds probe death of Naperville area man on Lake Mead
BY BILL BIRD wbird@stmedianetwork.com October 5, 2012 8:28PM
Maps
Updated: November 8, 2012 12:07PM
Agents of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s National Park Service are continuing their investigation into the death of a Naperville area man whose body was found on the Arizona side of Lake Mead.
Authorities on Friday identified the man as Kenneth S. Ritter, 54. He lived on Scots Drive, in the unincorporated Scots Plains/Willowbend area of DuPage County near Naperville’s far northwest side.
Ritter was found dead Thursday just before 2 p.m., according to Christie Vanover, public affairs officer for the National Park Service’s Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Boulder City, Nev.
The recreation area’s interagency communication center “received multiple reports of a male body washed up on shore,” Vanover said in a release.
“Rangers arrived on scene about 2 1/2 miles northeast of the Hoover Dam, and confirmed the reports at 1:49 p.m.” she said.
Ritter’s body was discovered near a functioning, fully-inflated kayak. “A personal floatation device was found on board, but Ritter was not wearing it at the time,” Vanover said.
Rangers reported finding no obvious signs of trauma on Ritter’s body. Vanover said the cause of his death “might have been medically related,” although she did not elaborate.
Lake Mead straddles the Arizona-Nevada border. Richard Castro, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Romeoville, said conditions Thursday afternoon in the Lake Mead area included clear skies, sporadic breezes and a temperature that hovered around 90 degrees.
A spokeswoman for the Mohave County medical examiner’s office in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., said an autopsy is scheduled for Monday.
Details about Ritter and his life in the Naperville area could not be immediately learned. He reportedly has family in Phoenix.
