A 48-year-old Burlington man who vanished after falling from a small fishing boat into Lake Champlain has been identified by Vermont State Police as Douglas Brooks. Divers recovered his body from Kingsland Bay in Ferrisburgh on Tuesday, three days after he disappeared beneath the water’s surface.
According to WAFB, state police had been searching for the missing boater since the weekend before confirming his identity. Vermont State Police said Brooks was reported to have fallen from a small fishing boat into Lake Champlain in Ferrisburgh on the afternoon of Nov. 7. A companion who was also aboard the boat told investigators that Brooks was not wearing a life jacket when he went into Kingsland Bay at about 4 p.m.
Search efforts culminated three days later when, at about 12:40 p.m. on Tuesday, the Vermont State Police Underwater Recovery Team located the body of a man in Kingsland Bay. The New York State Police Underwater Recovery Team assisted Vermont crews in the search, the agency said. Once recovered, the body was brought to shore for transport to the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Burlington.
Identity Still Pending Formal Confirmation
While Vermont State Police have named Brooks as the victim, the agency said the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office will perform an autopsy to confirm the victim’s identity and determine the cause and manner of death. That examination had not been completed as of the latest update from investigators.
In the initial days of the search, state police said there were no indications that Brooks’s disappearance was suspicious, a position the agency held before his body was located.
A Familiar Pattern on Vermont’s Largest Lake
Lake Champlain has seen similar cases before. In 2021, Vermont State Police identified a woman whose body was found off Cedar Island as 74-year-old Katherine Curley, saying preliminary indications were that she had fallen overboard and drowned. According to the Charlotte News, the cause of Curley’s death was found to be drowning, and the manner of death was ruled an accident.
No such determination has been made public in Brooks’s case, and investigators have not released further details about his companion, the boat involved, or the exact circumstances that led to his fall into the bay.
