Victims identified as Charlotte grandparents, 3-year-old grandson OK
Police received a call at about 12:30 p.m. Monday, April 19, from several men who were fishing along Lewis Creek in Charlotte near the covered bridge off Spear Street and Lewis Creek Road. They reported two bodies in the water. First responders arrived at the scene and confirmed that two adults were deceased in the water near Lewis Creek Road upstream from the bridge.
The victims were later identified as 70-year-old Martha Illick and 71-year-old Terrence Dinnan, both of whom resided on Lewis Creek Road in Charlotte.
Illick, known as Marty, served as executive director of the Lewis Creek Association, a conservation organization dedicated to protecting the body of water and its surroundings.
Investigators also learned that a 3 ½-year-old boy was missing.
After an extensive search of more than an hour, first responders located the child safe inside a vehicle at the nearby home of his grandparents.
Through investigation, the state police learned that the grandparents and their grandson were on a planned outing on a small boat on Lewis Creek when for unknown reasons the boat capsized, sending all three occupants into the water. The child was wearing a life vest, while the adults were not. The child was able to make it to shore and then returned, on his own, to the vehicle outside the house.
The boy was reunited with his parents at the scene.
Rescue crews recovered the bodies of the adults from the water a short distance downstream of the capsized boat.
Their remains will be taken to the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Burlington for autopsies to determine the cause and manner of death.
