A fisherman on Monday discovered a dead body off the coast of Maine, near the same area where another fisherman had gone missing last month.
The incident, according to the Maine Marine Patrol, took place on Monday morning off the coast of Addison in Eastern Maine, roughly 63 miles southeast of Bangor. At around 9:30 a.m. ET, an unnamed lobsterman from Jonesport found a dead body in the water. Speaking to the Portland Press-Herald Tuesday, Marine Patrol spokesman Jeff Nichols could not yet confirm the identity of the body, which was sent to the Maine Medical Examiner's Office in the state capital, Augusta, for testing. It is, however, heavily expected by some in the area to by 18-year-old lobsterman Tylar Michaud. Nichols confirmed these details in a statement to Newsweek.
"We still have no confirmation from the medical examiner's office on the identity of the body that was recovered," Nichols wrote.
Michaud, a native of Steuben, Maine, went missing near Petit Manan Island on July 21, only about seven miles away from where the body was found on Monday. On the day, he had reportedly been out on the water, hauling up and setting out lobster traps. Another fisherman later that evening found his empty boat, still in gear, near Petit Manan Point. The area had reportedly been blanketed in fog when Michaud went out.
A search effort was then launched to locate the missing lobsterman, carried out by the Maine Marine Patrol, the Maine Army National Guard, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, alongside Michaud's friends and family and dozens of other members of the local fishing community. The search was carried out on land, air, and sea, but turned up nothing. Just a day before the body was found near Addison, a celebration of life for Michaud was held at Sumner Memorial High School in the town of Sullivan, with a couple of hundred people attending.
Charles Kelley, a local lobsterman who also served as a pastor at the celebration, told the Bangor Daily News that the community all suspect that the remains belong to Michaud.
"Everybody is pretty sure it is Tylar that they've found," Kelley said. "No one else has gone missing."
Though young, Michaud reportedly had extensive experience on the water before he went missing, according to McClatchy News, having worked with numerous other fishermen and helmed a boat by himself. He had been working with roughly 300 lobster traps, planning to use the proceeds from his hauls to pay for an education at the Maine Maritime Academy, where he had been set to attend in the fall.
Updated 08/22/2023, 7:05 p.m. ET: This article was updated to reflect a response from the Maine Department of Marine Resources.
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