LITTLE ROCK — Forty hours after a woman’s body was spotted in a Little Rock creek by a passer-by Wednesday night, firefighters pulled the body out of the water late Friday morning.
Two Little Rock police detectives spotted the body behind some tall grass and brush along the east bank of Rock Creek about 11 a.m. Friday.
The body of the unidentified woman was ensnared at the base of a tree about 15 feet from the bank, about a quarter-mile north of Colonel Glenn Road, along with other debris from Tuesday night’s flooding, according to Little Rock Fire Department Capt. Edwin Woolf.
Firefighters waded into the 2-foot-deep water, which Woolf said had been waisthigh Thursday, to recover the body.
The body likely was stuck under the surface next to the tree when searchers went by the same location the day before, Woolf said.
Police Department spokesman Lt. Terry Hastings said the woman was white and in her 40s and was partially clothed. No identification was found when firefighters removed her from the creek.
It was too early to tell how long the woman had been dead or how long she had been in the water, Hastings said.
The circumstances surrounding her death, and how her body reached Rock Creek, were unknown as of Friday afternoon, he said.
Investigators have not ruled out foul play, Hastings said, but they will not know the cause of death until Monday, when the state medical examiner’s office performs an autopsy.
“It’s a little unusual,” Hastings said. “But as for the circumstances, if it’s a homeless person, we just don’t know.”
Hastings said the description of the woman does not match anyone reported to his department as missing.
According to police reports, Markey Haynes spotted the body shortly before 7:30 p.m. Wednesday as he was walking through Boyle Park and said it was wedged between some rocks and the low-water bridge over swollen Rock Creek.
Firefighters were able to grab the body Wednesday night and, working in shifts to prevent fatigue, tried for nearly 40 minutes to pull it out of the water, according to Capt. Randy Hickmon of the Little Rock Fire Department.
The combination of strong current and debris posed too great a risk to put rescue personnel in the water, Hickmon said. It also proved too much for the rescuers on the bridge and the body eventually submerged, floating past firefighters on the bridge.
“There was no getting her out,” Hickmon said Thursday.
Search crews were worried that the body, ensnared in debris, might make it all the way to the Arkansas River, although that would have been unlikely, Hickmon said.
After leaving the floodprone park about 1 a.m. Thursday, firefighters and police returned seven hours later and used boats, dogs and a helicopter to search the Boyle Park area as far as University Avenue and Fourche Creek, but had no luck finding the body.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 03/24/2012