Body Found in Retention Pond Near Cortez Road Walmart

A man who went missing in a retention pond on Thursday was found dead on Saturday.

A Wal-Mart employee called police Saturday afternoon to report  a man's body floating in the retention pond. Bradenton police and fire departments came out to the scene and pulled the body from the water and sent it to the medical examiner's office for identification.

Police are not releasing the victim's name until he is identified and his next of kin are notified.

It was the second time that police had been called to the retention pond last week.  The unidentified man is likely one of three men who went into the retention pond on Thursday at around 2:20 p.m. After about 20 minutes two of the men noticed that the third man did not surface from the water. The men called 9-1-1 and the Bradenton Police and Fire departments responded, along with Manatee County Emergency Medical Services.

No one could find the man and video from an area surveillance camera showed a man leaving the pond and walking away. One of the two men identified the person on the video as the missing person. 

Captain Warren Merriman said that at this time the Bradenton Police Department is not investigating the death as a homicide.