The highly publicized deaths of an engaged couple found a month apart in Lake Oconee after they vanished while on a boating trip have been declared accidental drownings.
Joycelyn Nicole Wilson, a 49-year-old Spelman College instructor, and her 50-year-old fiancé, Gary Jones, a Westminster Schools teacher, are thought to have died Feb. 8. Wilson’s body was found in the water the next day. Jones’ body was discovered a month later about 40 feet below the surface by an underwater recovery expert.
Autopsy reports for the pair reviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution list their causes of death as “drowning” and their manners of death as “accident.” Those findings are in line with investigators’ expectations.
Searchers find body of missing Westminster teacher in Lake Oconee
The sheriff of Putnam County, Howard Sills, who investigated the drownings and helped coordinate the monthlong search for Jones’ body, said soon after the man’s body was found in March that he considered the matter closed “unless there’s something strange in the autopsy.”…