HEARTBREAKING: Franco Garcia has been recovered

[MADem]

Franco Garcia Update: Body of missing Boston College student found in reservoir, family says

...Garcia's body was found in the Chestnut Hill Reservoir, family friend Genoveva Tavera told The Associated Press.

The 21-year-old, who was studying chemistry and played clarinet in the symphony band, disappeared Feb. 22 after leaving a bar in Boston popular with college students.

According to CBS Boston, the Boston Fire department says it received a call about the body at 7:57 a.m.

The reservoir is between the neighborhood of the bar Mary Ann's, where Garcia was last seen, and the Boston College campus, where Garcia planned to stay in a friend's dorm the night he vanished...

By all accounts, he was a great kid. Still unknown if it was an unfortunate accident or foul play was involved.

[chelsea0011]

1. The reservoir is surrounded by a chain link fence that one would have to climb

over to get to the water. It has been a while since I lived in the area but the fence was always maintained. Why would he climb in there if he did do that?

[MADem]

2. No....you can walk right to the water's edge in some parts. There's a jogging path there. It's not

entirely fenced.



Edited to add this commentary from the Globe (who took the pic, above):


...Garcia was at Mary Ann’s bar on Beacon Street in Cleveland Circle on the night of Feb. 21, but left around 12:15 a.m., apparently heading back to the BC campus where his car was parked, a walk that would take him past the reservoir.

A surveillance camera at a Citizens Bank ATM in Cleveland Circle captured an image of him striding past, seemingly unharmed and unworried.

After the discovery of the body today, Garcia family members huddled with law enforcement officials in a nearby parking lot some distance away from gathered reporters. A Boston College van then arrived and drove off with many of the relatives.

Onlookers and law enforcement officials stood along the perimeter of the reservoir, which State Police treated like a crime scene, with troopers blocking walking paths used daily by residents.

http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2012/04/body-found-chestnut-hill-reservoir-where-state-police-searched-for-franco-garcia/9asSQcvSFDC28AY1DXuqvM/index.html

[chelsea0011]

5. Thanks for the update. When I jogged there years ago remember a fence

always around the reservoir. Maybe not. That jogging thing was so long ago.

[MADem]

6. Well, now it's a "walking path."

I think a dog walker was the one who spotted the deceased.

[SamG]

3. Remind me of the weather that night, was it freezing?

I'm aware there wasn't much ice or frozen conditions this winter in Boston.

Could he have just been a little drunk and fallen in the cold water, or something as simple and tragic as this?

[MADem]

4. It wasn't that awful. No snow. We didn't have hardly any this year.

There were almost no occasions over the winter where the torturous conditions of winters past were present!

There's video of him passing by a convenience store under his own steam, walking "purposefully." He was a band kid, lived with his parents, was staying over at the dorm with a friend because he didn't want to drive buzzed--a good guy. Responsible. He was out with some band mates and met some kids he went to high school with at a nearby bar.

I have no idea what happened. I'm hoping the autopsy will give the family closure. I'd rather he died of a freak heart attack than was mugged, to be honest. I'd hate to think of him dealing with last moments of violence and his poor family having to process that.

By all accounts he was a wonderful young man.