HOT SPRINGS — Garland County authorities say partial remains of a person found floating in Lake Ouachita are those of a 17-year-old Benton girl who drowned in 2000.
The Arkansas State Crime Laboratory obtained DNA from the parents of Michelle Kathrin Ammann to make the identification.
Sheriff’s deputy Judy Daniell told the Hot Springs Sentinel Record on Monday that a boater discovered the remains Oct. 1 in the lake’s main channel. Daniell says the condition of the body indicated it had been there for several years.
Ammann and a friend were swimming around and diving off a party barge Aug. 20, 2000, when high winds moved the barge away from them. A witness pulled Ammann’s friend out of the water, but when he turned the boat around Ammann was gone.