Corrected: Tempe Police did not confirm on Jan. 28 that the body found was that of 24-year-old Willie Jigba. The following story has been changed due to error in initial reporting.
The Tempe Fire Department recovered a body from the Tempe Town Lake Friday morning. Police say the physical description of the body matches that of missing 24-year-old Willie Jigba.
Charles Hermman, a divemaster with the fire department’s dive team, saw the body floating from shore just outside the area the team has been searching for Jigba for the last two days.
The body was removed from the water by the fire department at approximately 10:30 a.m. Friday and the investigation was turned over to Tempe Police.
Police said the family of Jigba had been notified about the recovery.
Tempe Police spokesman Sgt. Steve Carbajal said the investigation is ongoing as a death investigation.
“Right now we’re trying to figure out what happened and if it was a homicide,” Carbajal said. “We’ve already done a lot of research up to this point.”
Jigba was last seen leaving a party in Tempe on Jan 15.
Jigba’s family filed a missing persons report the following day after Jigba failed to show up for the first day at his new job.
The search of Tempe Town Lake began Wednesday afternoon after a private, volunteer search group, hired by the family, detected a human scent at the lake.
Dogs identified the scent to be coming from the area west of the bridge and south of Loop 202 earlier this week.
The group and Jigba’s family then contacted the fire department, which deployed its dive team to search the area.
The team searched for several hours Wednesday afternoon and most of Thursday.
Twelve divers rotated in and out of the water, searching the identified area using a grid system, Tempe Fire spokesman Mike Reichling said.
Visibility was less than one foot and the entire search was done by feel in 45 to 55 degree water, he said.
“It was very difficult on our divers,” Reichling said. “But they did a thorough job.”
Reach the reporter at keshoult@asu.edu
