Body Found in Search for Boating Family

3 still missing off Florida's Gulf Coast
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 23, 2016 2:01 AM CDT
Body Found in Search for Boating Family
One of two kayaks recovered by the Coast Guard.   (USCG Southeast)

Coast Guard rescuers fear the worst but have not given up after finding a body in the search for a father and three teenage children who disappeared off the coast of Florida Sunday. The Coast Guard says it found the body, which was wearing a life jacket, after finding debris including other life jackets near where Ace Kimberly and children Becky, 17, Donny, 15, and Roger, 13, were last seen on their 29-foot sailboat, CBS 47 reports. "This is still an ongoing search and rescue," a Coast Guard spokesman says. "We still have three persons out there that we're trying desperately to locate."

The Coast Guard also recovered two kayaks that the family was believed to have been towing from Sarasota to Fort Myers, where Kimberly's brother had planned to make repairs to their boat, the Palm Beach Post reports. Boaters on Florida's Gulf Coast say they're shocked by the disappearance of the father and his three children, who apparently lived on the boat. "This is another reminder that things can change in an instant on the ocean. It doesn't take much to make things deadly serious out there," says one local boater. The children, who had been estranged from their mother since their parents split up almost a decade ago, were not registered at any Sarasota public school, WTSP reports. (More Florida stories.)

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