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- A foot bone found at Fish Lake may belong to a missing angler.
- The sheriff's office suspects it could be David M. White, missing since 1997.
- DNA comparison is underway; a search for more remains is planned in June.
KOOSHAREM, Sevier County — A dog out for a walk with its owner along the Fish Lake shoreline in Sevier County on May 16 found not just a shoe, but one with a bone in it.
Detectives then brought the bone to the medical examiner's office, who confirmed the bone was that of a human, the Sevier County Sheriff's Office announced in a news release on Tuesday.
Sheriff Nathan J. Curtis said search and rescue team members were sent to the lake the next morning after discovery of the bone. They didn't find any other evidence of where the foot came from, he said.
Detectives began looking into the case of a missing person from 1997, an angler near Fish Lake. It was originally thought that the angler fell into the lake while fishing.
The sheriff referenced a Deseret News article from 1997 about the search for David M. White, 44, of Washington, in Washington County, indicating the bone may be from him.
White was reported missing late August that year when other boaters on the Central Utah lake noticed the man's unoccupied craft running and trolling the waters, then-Sevier County Sheriff's Lt. Delbert Lloyd said.
Police believe White may have been fishing the center of the lake when he somehow fell into the 100-feet-deep waters. The search for him was ultimately called off because the lake was too deep for divers to see anything clearly.
"We have been able to find a child of the missing person and have sent in a DNA sample for comparison. At this time, we have no further information about a missing person suspected to be in the area," the sheriff's office said Tuesday.
The Utah Sheriff's Fish Lake Search and Rescue Conference will take place on June 6 and 7. As part of the conference, the group plans to lead a search for more of the missing person's remains.
