Alaska News

Body of missing 20-year-old found in slough near Bethel lake

BETHEL -- Bethel police said that a body found near a local lake Monday afternoon was that of a young man who had been missing for nearly a week.

The body recovered from a slough near H-Marker Lake, at the airport end of town, was that of Michael Elijah Lomack, 20, police said. Police received a report from Bethel Search and Rescue at 2:11 p.m. that a body had been found. Officers pulled the body from the water in an area a couple hundred yards from homes.

Lomack had been missing since Oct. 20, his family said in flyers posted around Bethel with his picture. He was reported missing Oct. 21 by his family, police said. He had updated his Facebook profile picture the day before he disappeared.

Lomack's family has been notified.

Police did not yet have preliminary information on his cause of death, said Bethel Police Chief Andre Achee. His remains are being sent to the State Medical Examiner Office in Anchorage for an autopsy.

Police ask anyone with information to call the agency at 543-3781.

Lisa Demer

Lisa Demer was a longtime reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Dispatch News. Among her many assignments, she spent three years based in Bethel as the newspaper's western Alaska correspondent. She left the ADN in 2018.

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