New Trier Grads Among 4 to Die on Wisconsin Lake Sunday

Two men are dead and two are missing — including two recent New Trier High School graduates — after a Sunday morning canoe trip on an icy Wisconsin lake. ABC Chicago reports New Trier High School confirms that two are former students.

The men, between the ages of 20 and 23, were all from Illinois, reports the Chicago Tribune. Alcohol may have been a contributing factor in the young men’s deaths.

A search of Mill Lake, in East Troy, WI, about 35 miles southeast of Milwaukee along Interstate 43, turned up two bodies. The search was suspended late Sunday and will resume early Monday morning. Officials said there are “marks” where the other two bodies likely will be found.

The search resumed Monday with divers and sonar equipment. Officials said the lake water is clearer.

ABC 7 Chicago, quoting Jason Roberts of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, reports:

They had gone to visit a friend whose parents have a house on Lake Beulah, about 35 miles southeast of Milwaukee. The four men left the house early Sunday morning and told friends they were going for a smoke but never returned. ...

“From across the bay they could see an overturned canoe,” Roberts said. Everyone had been drinking at the house and there was no evidence the young men took life jackets with them on the canoe, he said. Searchers eventually found two bodies in an area of the lake where the overturned canoe was found and there were signs of broken ice.

“At this time there is no reason to believe foul play was involved,” Roberts said.

The lake is about 30 to 40 feet deep where the bodies were found, but the bodies were found at about 8 to 12 feet. East Troy Police Chief James Surges said the water temperature and the time involved “precluded any rescue.”

A police official told a local TV station that four bodies were found earlier Sunday, but that information was incorrect.

This story is developing.