A man was found dead Wednesday morning in Twin Lake, a deep, spring-fed body of water straddling Golden Valley and the edge of Minneapolis, after authorities used an underwater robot to locate him in 19 feet of water. The discovery capped off a search that began when Golden Valley Police and Minneapolis Park Police asked the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office Water Patrol for help finding a missing person.
According to KSTP, the Water Patrol was requested to assist at about 7:25 a.m. Deputies searched the lake using an underwater remotely operated vehicle before locating the man, and per the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office, he was found in 19 feet of water. He was recovered and turned over to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office, which will determine his identity and cause of death at a later date, KSTP reported.
The Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board logged the incident as a suspected drowning, with Minneapolis Park Police and Golden Valley Police responding to Twin Lake at approximately 10:15 a.m. on Wednesday. Law enforcement is still working to learn more about the circumstances of the man's death, and no cause has been confirmed.
A Lake Deeper Than It Looks
Twin Lake covers just 21 acres but plunges to a maximum depth of 56 feet, with an average depth of 26 feet, according to the Bassett Creek Watershed Management Commission. That unusual depth for such a small urban lake helps explain why locating the man required specialized underwater technology rather than a surface search alone. The commission also notes the lake's watershed is 60 percent parkland and preserve, and that aluminum sulfate treatments applied starting in 2015 have kept water clarity exceeding 4 meters, conditions that can aid — but not guarantee — visibility for underwater recovery efforts.
To search the deep, dark water, the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office Water Patrol relies on tools such as an Oceanbotics SRV-8 remotely operated vehicle, which is equipped with eight thrusters, sonar, and a robotic mechanical arm built to navigate deep mud, the sheriff's office has said. The unit pairs the ROV with side-scan sonar for exactly this kind of deep-water recovery work.
Shared Turf Between Two Departments
Twin Lake sits in Golden Valley immediately next to Theodore Wirth Regional Park, a Minneapolis Park Board property that extends across the municipal border. That overlap led Golden Valley and the Park Board to sign a joint memorandum of understanding in May 2021 to coordinate policing and upkeep around the lake, according to CCX Media, following years of jurisdictional ambiguity over who was responsible for the shoreline. That agreement is why both Golden Valley Police and Minneapolis Park Police responded jointly to Wednesday's missing person call.
The lake's secluded beach has drawn law enforcement attention before. In July 2020, Golden Valley Police and Minneapolis Park Police used drone surveillance to investigate repeated complaints about alcohol, drug use, and public nudity at the site, per CBS Minnesota.
Part of a Recent Pattern in Hennepin County
Wednesday's recovery is not an isolated event for the county's Water Patrol. Just 17 days earlier, on August 16, deputies and Minneapolis Park Police responded to retrieve human remains found along the shoreline of Bde Maka Ska in Minneapolis, a case that involved decomposed remains, as MPR News reported.
Since 2023, the sheriff's office has kept Hennepin EMS paramedics stationed on Water Patrol vessels during the season, providing immediate medical care during lake rescues across the 104 lakes and three major rivers the county oversees. That infrastructure reflects the scale of a broader statewide problem: preliminary Minnesota Department of Natural Resources records show the state logged 25 non-boating drownings in 2025 and 49 in 2024, with non-boating incidents accounting for the majority of the state's water fatalities each year.
Minnesota law requires a U.S. Coast Guard-approved life jacket to be readily accessible for every person aboard a watercraft, and children under 10 must wear one at all times while underway, under state boating regulations enforced by the DNR. It remains unknown whether the man found in Twin Lake had been boating, swimming, or otherwise in the water before he went missing. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office has not yet released his name or a cause of death.
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