MOSQUITO POINT, Va. – The bodies of two boaters who went missing Sunday morning were recovered from the Rappahannock River Thursday.
59-year-old Mark Ringenberg and 59-year-old Stephen Perkins departed from Weems, Virginia, Sunday morning. Dispatchers from the Virginia Marine Resources Commission contacted watchstanders at Sector Hampton Roads command center Sunday evening and notified them that a 15-foot boat was found with keys in the ignition, shoes on the deck and cold drinks in a cooler. The boat was unoccupied.
Around 9:20 a.m. Thursday, dispatchers received a call that a body had been found in the Mosquito Point area. The Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office, along with Lancaster County Emergency Services, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission and the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, responded to the area.
Authorities found the body at 9:45 a.m. and confirmed that it was a man who showed similarities to that of Ringenberg. His body was recovered and sent to the Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for positive identification and a cause of death investigation.
Around 11:15 a.m., VRMC found a second body in the area of Mosquito Island. Members of VMRC and VDGIF recovered the body, and at 12:15 p.m. it was brought to shore and confirmed to be that of Perkins.
Perkins’ body was also sent to the Medical Examiner’s Office for a cause of death investigation.
Both of the victims’ families have been notified.
The Coast Guard suspended its search for the men Monday evening after a combined total of 63 hours and 774 square miles searched.
