By Lawrence Powell

The Spectator

NovaNewsNow.com

The body of a missing 75-year-old Springfield area man was discovered Saturday by his family two days after an extensive three-day search was suspended.

Middleton RCMP Cpl. Dave Fraser said an autopsy was performed on William Lewis Sunday and it was concluded that he had died of natural causes. He said foul play is not suspected.

Fraser said William Lewis’s body was found at about 3:30 p.m. Saturday near the area that ground search and rescue teams had combed the previous Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The search had concentrated on an area between a logging road where some of Lewis’s belongings had been discovered and his home deep in the woods six or seven kilometers away.

Although the search had been called off, Fraser had said Friday afternoon the search for the reclusive Lewis could be resumed if new information was forthcoming.

“The search team has exhausted all possibilities based on what we had,” Fraser said Friday, explaining that searchers scoured the area between where Lewis’s backpack, toboggan, a water bottle, and a bottle of root beer were found on a back road, and his home.

Fraser said Monday that Lewis’s family decided to conduct an unofficial search Saturday. Family members first went to Lewis’s home, and based on what they had witnessed of the previous search, ventured out on their own. Fraser said the body was found in an area searchers had considered and in which some searching had been conducted.

Lewis was last seen April 4 when he returned to Nova Scotia from a trip to Ontario. He was seen at a store in New Germany where he checked his mail and replenished his supplies. A store clerk said Lewis had not looked well. A taxi took him to the Springfield area where he was dropped off at Waterloo Lake Road to begin his trek through the woods to his home.

Fraser said Lewis’s home was about 15 kilometres from his nearest neighbour.

Fraser said a Department of Natural Resources patrol stumbled upon Lewis’s backpack and notified police last Tuesday. RCMP notified the family and with the help of a DNR helicopter began the search on the afternoon of April 15. An RCMP helicopter took over the air search Thursday.

Also involved were search teams from Annapolis and Lunenburg counties who only came out of the woods at about 8 p.m. Thursday.

Fraser said that after three days, searchers had to weigh what sort of search they would have if they continued.

“Where do we go?” he asked. “We decided with family agreement that we’d suspend it for now.”

Searchers suspected from the beginning that Lewis might have been ill.

Fraser said the fact that some of his belongings were found tended to support that theory – as if Lewis was trying to get rid of extra weight by abandoning articles. Those involved in the search believed that ordinarily Lewis would have at least tried to hide or camouflage belongings he left behind.

Fraser described Lewis as very self-sufficient and the walk through the woods would normally not have bothered him. Fraser said he was told that Lewis was a navigator in the air force and would be able to find his way home by celestial reckoning.

Fraser said the volunteer search crews must be highly commended for their efforts to date.

“To put that much effort into it, to search at night and potentially putting their own lives at risk speak volumes.”