The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is now looking into the drowning of a Habersham County man on Lake Sinclair over the July 4th holiday weekend.
Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills said he emailed the GBI on Thursday and requested their agency investigate the drowning of 34-year-old David Hoyt Glass. The victim’s body was recovered from Lake Sinclair by divers from the Baldwin County Public Safety Department after it was located by Georgia DNR officers using sonar on July 3.
In earlier reports, Sills said his deputies responded to a call on Nina Drive in which someone reported hearing a person out on the lake calling for help. The deputies went door-to-door asking people to check security cameras. They learned that a group of people had been partying out on the dock during the night at one residence.
Sills said another person told Deputy Nick Fazio that they’d seen someone dazed and confused on their dock. They’d taken a picture of the man, which they showed the deputy.
Fazio took the photo to the house where the party had been, and a woman recognized the man as Kevin Kuhn, also of Habersham County. Kuhn told Fazio that he and Glass had been on the dock drinking and had fallen asleep. Kuhn said he woke up in the water under someone else’s dock, and Glass was nowhere to be found.
DNR was called, and the search ensued, with assistance from the Baldwin dive team and divers with Putnam County Fire Department.
Glass’s body was found in water approximately 10 feet deep, Sills said.
At the time, the sheriff said the investigation was pending the results of an autopsy. Putnam County Coroner Hollis Harrison said the autopsy classified the cause of death to be drowning.
Meanwhile, Glass’s family members had called the GBI requesting they investigate the drowning.
Because a law enforcement agency must request the GBI’s involvement, Sills said when word reached him of the family’s request, he emailed Special Agent in Charge Mary Chandler, of the GBI Region 6 office in Milledgeville.