The search for a missing 17-year-old came to a tragic end Friday when his body was recovered in Lake Allatoona.
Georgia Department of Natural Resources spokesperson Mark McKinnon told reporters Friday they were looking for Jackson Cole Croft of Woodstock.
McKinnon said his body was found at about 3:40 p.m. by sonar, 22 feet underwater and several hundred feet from where his empty boat had been found spinning on the lake the day before. Divers recovered Croft’s body shortly after.
“All we know is that Mr. Croft was operating that boat,” McKinnon said. “As far as we know, he was on the boat alone.”
The lake is a popular recreational area north of Atlanta near Acworth. It is a reservoir owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the Etowah River.
Cherokee County emergency crews were called at about 5:30 p.m. Thursday after people reported seeing the small boat circling in the Little River Marina near JD’s on the Lake barbecue, McKinnon said. Rescuers reached the boat and stopped it, but it was empty.
The search continued late into the night and then resumed Friday morning, officials said. Crews, including the Army Corps of Engineers, conducted a grid search of the lake with sonar and a submersible vessel that is equipped with a camera.
“We’re working with … the sheriff’s office and with the fire department here,” McKinnon said earlier Friday. “We all have the same goal: We want to bring this family some closure. It’s a very tragic situation, and it’s one that none of these officers enjoy. It’s a difficult spot for the officers to be in as well.”
Like many human-made reservoir lakes across the state, including Lake Lanier, Lake Allatoona varies widely in depth and is full of standing timber from when the land was flooded as the dam was built in the 1940s. That can make it treacherous for boaters unfamiliar with shallower parts of the lake, where water-logged trees may be closer to the surface.
Lake Allatoona is one of the most frequently visited Corps of Engineers lakes in the nation with nearly 7 million visitors each year, according to the federal agency.
Earlier this year, a similar case played out on Putnam County’s Lake Oconee, another reservoir with similar lake bed topography. A small, unmanned boat was reported circling near Wallace Dam on Feb. 8 and sparked a weeks-long search for its two occupants.
The body of Spelman College instructor Joycelyn Wilson was found a day later near where the boat was spinning. The body of her fiancé, Westminster Schools coach Gary Jones, was found March 9 in about 45 feet of water not far from where Wilson’s body was recovered.
— Please return to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for updates.
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