Divers located the body of a 6-year-old Wilmar boy who went missing while swimming with his family at Lake Monticello Wednesday afternoon.
Benjamin Hayes‘ body was located following a 2-hour search about 60 feet from the bank on the Arkansas 35 access side of Lake Monticello where he had been playing.
Drew County Sheriff Mark Gober, who knew the family, said when he saw Benjamin recently, Ben told him he wanted to be a police officer when he grew up. Gober said he replied, “‘No, you want to be the sheriff.'”
Hayes is the fourth person to drown at Lake Monticello since 2009.
Seth Hall, 17, of Missouri, died on June 17, 2011 while swimming near the dock area of Lake Monticello; Antuan Deundre Clifton, a 16-year-old Wilmar boy, was taken off life support eight days after he was pulled from Lake Monticello on June 7, 2010; and Robert Brazeale, a 21-year-old Monticello man, drowned at the lake on May 20, 2009 about five feet from the dock on the Arkansas 35 access side of the lake.
Patrick Sullivan, a 15-year-old Star City boy who drown at Lake Monticello in 2005, is believed to be the first person to drown at Lake Monticello, according to a family member. The following year, in May 2006, Warren teen Geronimo Salvador drown in the lake after stepping into a drop off into deep water.
