By JEFF LIPTON
The victim, identified as Edel Lorenzo, 64, of Davis Place, was last seen alive at the Mooring Boat Yard on Brower Avenue in Oceanside on July 12 at 11 a.m., according to detectives at the 4th Squad.
A good Samaritan who was operating a boat called "The Great Escape" spotted Lorenzo’s 19-foot pleasure craft adrift about a mile south of Long Beach and four miles west of Jones Inlet at about 3:15 p.m., said Petty Officer Annie Berlin, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Coast Guard.
Berlin said the good Samaritan reported to the Coast Guard that the boat was unoccupied, with the keys in the ignition and a fishing line hanging over the side of the vessel. A wallet was also discovered in the boat, she said.
Rescue crews from the Jones Beach Coast Guard station as well as the Nassau County Police Department’s Marine Bureau 5 were dispatched to the area in search of the missing boater, as helicopters with rescue personnel hovered above the water where the abandoned vessel was found, Berlin said.
The Marine Bureau towed the vessel to the Coast Guard station in Jones Beach and continued to search for the missing boater, officials said. They concentrated their search between Jones Inlet and East Rockaway Inlet, about five miles off the shore of Long Beach, Berlin said.
As members of one rescue crew were returning to replenish supplies for the other rescuers, they spotted the victim about a half-mile away in the water, at about 5:55 p.m., Berlin said.
"He was not alive when he was found," said Berlin. "The body was found within the search area."
Lorenzo was officially pronounced dead at 6:52 p.m. by Nassau County medical technicians. The victim was then taken to the Nassau County Morgue, said 4th Squad detectives, who added that the investigation is continuing.
Authorities said they were specifically trying to determine how Lorenzo ended up in the water.
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