Body found in Ohio River could be missing Proctorville man
Published 2:32 pm Monday, May 21, 2012
PROCTORVILLE — The search for a missing Proctorville man may be over.
Sunday night the body of a man was recovered from the Ohio River near Glenwood in Mason County, W.Va. and sent to the West Virginia Medical Examiner’s office.
“The medical examiner has not made a positive identification as yet though we feel strongly it is Mr. Lawson,” Lawrence County Sheriff Jeff Lawless said Monday afternoon. “Hopefully the medical examiner will confirm shortly. He is working from medical records and may make a determination this afternoon.”
Alan Lawson, 41, was reported missing by his wife, Paula, on April 30, two days after he left their Proctorville home to check on rental property in Ironton.
On May 3 the 1999 blue Ford Taurus he had been driving was found in the 1900 block of James River Road in Huntington, W.Va., by Huntington Police Department. It has been left in a parking lot of a ball field. The car was searched by Lawrence County Sheriff’s detectives. Lawless said at the time there were no signs of foul play in the car.
James River Road is in the Westmoreland section of Huntington, across the Ohio River from Burlington. Paula Lawson told authorities that her husband was to have met a woman in South Point who wanted to look at a car Lawson was selling. Lawson and the possible buyer were to have met at a parking lot in the South Point Food Fair. Lawson’s wife said the buyer told her that Lawson did not show up.
Lawless declined to give a cause of death for the man whose body was retrieved from the river on Sunday.
“Detective from the Huntington Police Department, the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office and the West Virginia State Police are working in cooperation to investigate,” Lawless said.