Truck pulled from river was ’07 suicide victim’s

Pickup found in search for stolen cars

— A pickup pulled from the Arkansas River on Thursday once belonged to a Dallas man who committed suicide more than three years ago, according to a Pulaski County sheriff’s office report released Friday.

Sheriff ’s deputies found the 1995 GMC pickup registered to Christopher Zeiller while looking for submerged stolen cars near Riverside RV Park in downtown North Little Rock - a “hot spot” for car thieves to ditch stolen vehicles, sheriff’s investigators have said.

However, when deputies checked the pickup’s vehicle identification number and license plate, which expired in 2008, they found it wasn’t listed as stolen, the report said. Instead on Friday, they found sheriff’s office investigators had recovered its owner’s body on May 16, 2007, at Willow Beach Park,the report said.

Zeiller’s death was deemed “an apparent suicide” at the time, and on Friday, sheriff’s Lt. Tim Hibbs wrote in the report that “the victim must have driven his truck into the river during the suicide.”

The 54-year-old Texan was fully dressed and wearing boots when workers on a barge spotted his body in the river, deputies said in May 2007. A medical examiner determined he drowned, deputies said at the time.

The truck, which was found in 22-foot-deep water with visibility of about six inches, broke into two pieces while it was being pulled from the river Thursday. It was then impounded and will likely be sold for scrap, sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Carl Minden said.

Deputies also recovered a 2000 Chevrolet Impala, which was reported stolen to North Little Rock police in 2009.

Arkansas, Pages 15 on 07/24/2010

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