Winona Sheriff Pleased To Have Closure In River Search

The Winona County sheriff is relieved that a cold-weather search of the Mississippi is over, just before it would have been suspended until spring.

Sheriff Dave Brand was making plans to temporarily halt the search for accident victim Andrew Kingsbury of La Crosse, when search crews located Kingsbury in the water on Sunday.  His body had drifted downstream in the two weeks since the SUV crash that killed the driver and three passengers. Brand recalls that the same thing happened in March of 1997, when five young people died in a similar crash into the river at Winona:

 

Brand says about two-thirds of the people who assisted in the recovery were volunteers from outside Winona with experience in underwater searches.