Searchers now using sonar in search for missing boaters

Published 11:12 am Monday, December 7, 2020

The search for two missing boaters resumed Monday in an area south of the LeTourneau boat landing.

“We are going to do a surface search on the river and also use side-scanning sonar,” Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said. “We will also do a ground search to see if they made it to the shore. We’re going to be searching an area from LeTourneau landing south.”

Boaters Zeb Hughes, 21, from Wesson, and 16-year-old Gunner Palmer were reported missing Thursday when the pair did not return from duck hunting on the river. The pair put in at the LeTourneau Landing Thursday.

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For the past four days, county and state authorities, first responders, volunteers and Madison Parish sheriff’s deputies have searched an area from LeTourneau south to Davis Island, where the pair were going to check out a duck hunting location.

All of the efforts to find them have been unsuccessful, although their boat was recovered Friday and searchers have recovered other items belonging to the boaters.