BLYTHEVILLE -- Authorities identified the body of a man who drowned in a 2014 barge accident on the Mississippi River and was recovered earlier this month.
State Crime Laboratory medical examiners determined that bones found about 35 miles downstream from the accident site were those of Juan Nieves, Mississippi County Coroner Mike Godsey said.
Nieves of Caruthersville, Mo., was unloading a barge at Kinder Morgan's coil dock near Hickman when it overturned and sank on April 8, 2014.
Nieves and Nicolas Perez Hernandez died in the accident. Searchers found Hernandez' body 10 miles downstream on April 25, 2014.
A man who was traveling the length of the Mississippi River by canoe found a skull and other bones on a sandbank near Osceola when he beached his craft there on Aug. 6, Godsey said.
State Desk on 08/28/2015