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Isle of Wight County sheriff’s deputies discovered a body floating in a stormwater retention pond off Carrollton and Brewers Neck boulevards near an under-construction housing development.

Sheriff’s Office spokesman Capt. Tommy Potter posted to Twitter shortly before 1:30 p.m. Friday that the victim is male and that the scene had been turned over to the Virginia State Police for investigation.

State Police were still on the scene after 3 p.m. and had pulled from the pond a blue Dodge pickup truck caked with sediment.

State Police spokeswoman Sgt. Michelle Anaya, who was on-scene, stated the body had been “unrecognizable.” The vehicle, she said, had likely been at the bottom of the pond for “a while,” but couldn’t give a timeframe of how long or when it might have entered.

State Police had been called to the scene at 11:44 a.m., Anaya said.

Anaya said the victim may be a missing person from Suffolk, but did not name that person. According to a press release Anaya sent out at 3:19 p.m., Suffolk Police had also responded to the scene and were assisting with identifying the missing person.

A tow truck was called to haul the truck away. Anaya couldn’t say where the truck or body would be taken.

The Suffolk News-Herald had reported on Jan. 12 that Suffolk Police were seeking the public’s assistance in locating 69-year-old Robert Bailey, who was last seen in the city on New Year’s Eve.

Bailey, a Newport News resident, was last seen Dec. 31 leaving the residence of a family member in the Chuckatuck area of Suffolk, according to the News-Herald. Chuckatuck borders Isle of Wight County.

He was reportedly driving a light blue 1998 Dodge Ram with Virginia tags of VLH-4021. The same tags were found on the blue truck State Police pulled from the stormwater pond.

The discovery comes one week after 18-year-old Aonesty Selby of Williamsburg was found dead on a dirt logging path in a remote area of the county on Jan. 13, just over 11 miles southwest of the stormwater pond where the male body was found. The pond is part of The Crossings condominium development, which broke ground in 2021 and is still under construction.

Isle of Wight investigators, with the assistance of the Newport News Police Department, arrested Andarius McClellan of Newport News on Jan. 17 and charged him with killing Selby.

 

This is a developing story.