After days of searching, officials in Ventura County, California, confirmed that Naya Rivera‘s body was discovered at Lake Piru following her disappearance on Wednesday. Officials held a press conference on Monday to share a few details about the case. According to Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub, there have been no signs of foul play involved in Rivera’s death and disappearance. Authorities obtained that information following an initial medical examination of the body. A more thorough analysis is forthcoming.
Additionally, Ayub shared a few details about their discovery of Rivera. He said that the Glee star’s body was recovered around 9:10 a.m. local time after it appeared on the surface of the lake. Ayub said that the body seemed to have been in the water for several days and that it was found in the northeastern portion of the lake, which has a depth of 35 to 60 feet. Rivera initially went missing on Wednesday following a trip to Lake Piru with her 4-year-old son Josey. According to her son, the two were in the water, and Rivera then helped him onto the boat. Josey shared that his mother, who was not wearing a life jacket, disappeared beneath the surface of the water. Josey was later found alone on the boat that he and his mother rented. The 4-year-old has subsequently been safely reunited with his father, Rivera’s ex-husband Ryan Dorsey.
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Ayub’s statements about the circumstances behind Rivera’s disappearance and death align with what Sgt. Kevin Donoghue of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office previously shared about the case. On Friday, he told PEOPLE that he did not believe that there was any foul play involved and that he did not think that Rivera died by suicide, as some initially speculated. He told the publication, “We interviewed her son, and there was nothing that we learned from her son that would have suggested that this was suicide. Everything that we’ve learned so far leads to this being some sort of water recreational accident.”
Even though he said that he believed that this was a “tragic accident,” he said that authorities can not be sure of the exact circumstances surrounding the case just yet. “To say definitively what actually happened, we really can’t say. We just don’t know; it’s a mystery,” Donoghue continued. “We’re still investigating; we’re still searching. We’re trying to uncover clues as we go. But so far, we really don’t have a lot of information to make any guesses as to what could have happened.”
