- By Chronicle News Service on October 17, 2007 at 6:46 AM, updated October 17, 2007 at 11:33 AM
Couple braces for news of daughter's death
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Chronicle News Service
By Chronicle News Service
on October 17, 2007 at 6:46 AM, updated October 17, 2007 at 11:33 AM
GRAND RAPIDS -- While Marlene Stephens nurses her husband back to health after open-heart surgery, the Northwest Side couple are bracing for news that their daughter, missing for four years, has been found dead.
That word could come as soon as Wednesday after a medical examiner determines the identity of a woman found today inside a Chevrolet Lumina last registered to Kathleen Wiekierak. The car was found submerged in Cranberry Lake this afternoon.
"It's her car, and we've prayed very hard for closure on this," Marlene Stephens said tonight. "We were sure she was dead, but we have prayed for an answer. We may have it. It's good, but, at the same time, it hurts."
Authorities from Kent and Ottawa counties pulled the car out of the lake this afternoon -- the second vehicle and the second person discovered this month in the 110-acre body of water.
On Oct. 7, a fisherman found Carlos Diaz floating in the water. Dive teams two days later found his truck about 100 feet from shore. He crashed his vehicle into the lake days before he was found, police believe.
Ottawa County sheriff's Lt. Mark Bennett said divers from the Kent County Sheriff's Department had marked the spot where the Lumina rested while searching for Diaz's vehicle with sonar equipment and an underwater camera.
They came back for a practice dive today and found the car belonging to Wiekierak. They were unaware there was a vehicle there when they went into the water, police said.
Police did not want to speculate on the victim's identity, pending an autopsy.
Wiekierak was last seen Aug. 22, 2003, when she left her parents' house on Lenora Avenue NW about 4 a.m. Her mother assumed she had run to the grocery store, but no one ever heard from the 47-year-old woman again.
Jim and Marlene Stephens filed a missing person report and told authorities their daughter had no ties to drugs, no enemies or other troubles. Stephens said tonight her daughter had not shown symptoms of depression.
"There were no problems," she said. "Kathi was supposed to babysit her granddaughter the next day, that's why it was so unusual that no one heard from her. It was hard to hear it today since (her father) recently had heart surgery. We've spent most of the night contacting family to tell them all of our wait could be over."
Wiekierak, a mother of five, was living with her parents after returning from a one-year stint teaching English in Uzbekistan.
Bennett said there were no signs of foul play connected to today's finding. He declined to identify the possible victim, saying only that her body had been there for "some time."
"We think it's been more than a year," he said.
Authorities believe Diaz's and the woman's deaths are the result of accidents on the north side of the lake, where cars southbound on Kenowa Avenue run into the lake at a dead-end.
The deaths mark the second and third fatalities at the lake since 1998. Sherman J. Hecksel, 23, died after he and two friends tried to drive a car over the ice during an outing almost a decade ago. The vehicle broke through the ice and the other two occupants escaped, but Hecksel drowned.
Brett Laughlin, engineering director at the Ottawa County Road Commission, was unaware of any requests to put up barriers to block vehicles from the lake.
The dirt road is marked with signs warning drivers they are approaching the water. Factors including traffic volume, road grading and use of the lake would be considered when determining to erect a barrier, Laughlin said.
Police are unsure that it is necessary to add safety features to the road and say a guardrail or other device would block recreational users from the water.
Source: http://blog.mlive.com/chronicle/2007/10/couple_braces_for_news_of_daug.html
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