A man discovered deceased inside a vehicle drowned in the Great Miami River was identified

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The body found inside a car buried in the Great Miami River in Hamilton on Tuesday has been identified as that of a 57-year-old Hamilton man.

Police and the Butler County Coroner’s Office say they found and removed Damien T. Varner from a white SUV Tuesday evening.

It was determined that Varner’s drowning death was an accident.

The Great Miami River, south of the Columbia Road bridge, was the scene of a car in the water on Tuesday just before 3:45 p.m., according to the Butler County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Response Services Team and Task Force One Dive Team. Before the car was recovered after dark, crews toiled for hours in the freezing water.

Although there were no 911 calls, a Hamilton police investigator found the car in the river while looking into a missing person report that was submitted on Monday, according to Butler County dispatch.

Jeff Benge, a Hamilton investigator, used GPS tracking in the car to locate the last known location of the vehicle, which was the Great Miami River’s riverbank.

He looked along the riverbank and discovered a car under the ice.

In order to verify that the car buried in the ice matched the description of the car the victim was last seen driving, more officers arrived and employed a drone.

An underwater drone was utilized by the county’s emergency response team to verify that a deceased victim was inside the car.

According to a Hamilton Police Department statement, extra equipment was required to recover the person and the vehicle because of the dangerous circumstances and subfreezing temperatures.

Around 10 p.m. on Tuesday, the car was pulled out of the river.

RESOURCE