Body Found in Toledo’s Maumee River Leaves a Family Searching for Answers

A Toledo family is waiting for answers after fire crews recovered the body of David Edward Skiles, 49, from the Maumee River on Thursday. Relatives identified Skiles after the recovery, and officials in Toledo say the investigation into how he reached the river is still continuing, with no cause of death determined yet.

His sister, Tabitha Ilsley, said Skiles frequently walked near that stretch of water and that she last saw him on Saturday night, when he asked her to visit a casino and she declined. Early on Sunday morning he called their mother from another person’s telephone — a call she says he made every night — and that was the family’s final contact with him. “We don’t know what happened… like, we don’t have answers or nothing,” Ilsley said.

His father, Charles Skiles, is mourning a second son lost in three years, and the family says it is struggling to afford funeral expenses, with a GoFundMe gathering donations toward the costs. Relatives hope to place a small memorial near the water where he was found. “Everybody wants to know so they can put some flowers or something there,” Charles Skiles said.

Cases like this one follow a familiar path for investigators: detectives and emergency responders examine the recovery site and gather physical evidence, while medical examiners work to determine a cause of death. For families in Albuquerque as much as in Toledo, it is the waiting between a recovery and those answers that is often the hardest part.

Source: Body of David Edward Skiles found in Maumee River in Toledo — Glass City Ledger (glasscityledger.com)