Body found in Lake Michigan identified as man missing from 63rd Street Harbor

A body found this week on the North Shore of Lake Michigan has been identified as a man who went missing after swimming on the South Side of Chicago.

He was identified as 49-year-old Martin Mendoza of Waukesha, Wisconsin, according to the Lake County coroner’s office. He died of drowning, a preliminary autopsy ruled.

Mendoza went missing Aug. 8 after swimming from a boat in Lake Michigan near the 63rd Street Harbor, Chicago police have said.

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His body was spotted Sunday afternoon by the crew of a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter conducting a training exercise three miles east of the Lake Forest shoreline, according to the Lake County sheriff’s office.

About an hour earlier, a fisherman spotted the body of another person, a still-unidentified woman, floating in the water three miles southeast of the Waukegan Harbor, the sheriff’s office said in a statement. Authorities haven’t said if that case was connected with Mendoza’s.

At least 24 people have drowned in Lake Michigan so far in 2021, according to the Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project. Last year, 56 had drowned in Lake Michigan.