‘It is crushing’: Body recovered from Lake Mead identified as missing paddleboarder

A body recovered from Lake Mead on Wednesday afternoon has been confirmed to be that of a man who went missing while paddleboarding on the weekend.

The Clark County coroner’s office identified the body as Gregory Bell, 58, who went missing Saturday. The cause and manner of Bell’s death were pending, the coroner’s office said Thursday.

The body was recovered north of Boulder Harbor by park rangers at about 3:42 p.m., the National Park Service said.

Bell’s wife, Serena Wanigasekera Bell, documented the family’s search for him through posts on Facebook.

“It is impossible to grasp and believe this horrible truth,” she wrote. “He was coming home to me! I just knew he was.”

According to the National Park Service, Gregory Bell was paddleboarding without a life jacket with a group near Boulder Islands around 8:30 p.m. Saturday when several people fell into the water. Five group members were accounted for, but at the time, Bell was still missing, the park service said.

The family led an extensive search effort, triangulating an area where they believed Bell may have landed based on currents and conditions, Serena Wanigasekera Bell explained in a post.

She thanked those who searched for her husband. “You have given the girls and I peace knowing we left no stone unturned,” she wrote.

Gregory Bell’s daughter, Marisa Hearne, said the family would not make further statements about her father’s death.

Suzie de Souza, his wife’s cousin, wrote in a Facebook post that she is “trying to connect to the ‘Greg effect’ and that is to live life fully, love with everything you got and spread the love and magic everywhere you go. He could do that effortlessly.”

“It is crushing, but I now know the meaning of closure … there is something to be said for it,” Serena Wanigasekera Bell wrote in a post.

Contact Estelle Atkinson at eatkinson@reviewjournal.com. Contact Taylor Lane at tlane@reviewjournal.com.