Body recovered: Hearing from the man who called police
WICOMICO Co., Md. – On Sunday morning when Delreo Frye, a ferry operator, got to work, he noticed something unusual.
Frye said, “Well when I came to work, I took the ferry across the river, and then noticed the gate had been ripped and then I noticed that there was some damage done to the side of the road plus another sign and I noticed tire tracks going down the ramp.”
Following his instincts, Frye called the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office, which led to a harrowing discovery.
Frye said, “The Sheriff and everybody came down and then they finally brought the divers down and the divers went around and found that the car was here with a body.”
The body was identified by police as 47-year-old Sara Stilwell. The car, with Stilwell still inside, was located about 20 feet down by the bulkhead on Sunday. Police say the car had actually crashed into the river a day earlier.
Sheriff Mike Lewis with the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office said, “Based on video footage obtained from homes in the area, we know that her vehicle went in the river at 8:26 pm Saturday night.”
Police say it seems Stilwell was having an ordinary Saturday night. Sheriff Lewis said, “We know that she normally went to the grocery store on Saturday nights and we found evidence that she went to a grocery store on Saturday night.”
So it is still unclear why she crashed into the river. Sheriff Lewis said, “There’s a lot of leads that were looking at right now in trying to piece the puzzle together to get some closure for the family.”
Stilwell’s body was removed from the car on Sunday afternoon. On Monday morning, the Sheriff’s Office was finally able to also remove the car from the river.
Now that the car is removed, police say they are going to work hard to piece together what happened.
Sheriff Lewis said, “We owe it to the family to do a comprehensive investigation to determine exactly what happened.”
As a result of the accident, the ferry at the river was shut down all day Sunday as well as most of Monday, but it is now back up and running.
Stilwell’s body has been sent to the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Baltimore for a full autopsy.
Police say that autopsy report likely won’t be released for a few weeks.
