State Officials ID Bridgeport Man Who Drowned In Candlewood Lake

BRIDGEPORT, CT — State officials have a Brookfield man as the drowning victim recovered from Candlewood Lake earlier this week, believed to be the swimmer missing since Friday night.

Denis Junio Rodrigues Pio, 20, was the man who went missing near Chicken Rock around 7:15 p.m. Friday, according to the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

Crews successfully recovered Pio's body shortly before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, and called off the search that been in pace all weekend. Firefighters from Brookfield, Danbury, Sherman, New Milford, and Newtown, as well as dive teams from the Danbury, Brookfield, and the state all took part in the operation.

Members of the Candlewood Lake Authority Marine Patrol spotted the body just southeast of Green Island. Sherman marine crews then recovered the body, and turned it over to officers from the state Environmental Conservation Police, a division of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

The Bridgeport man is the third to die on Candlewood Lake since the end of May. A 24-year-old Bristol boater, Larry Kwokpo Chan, drowned on May 29. Later that Memorial Day Weekend, 76-year-old Wayne Pogers had a fatal accident, falling into the water while working on his boat tied to a dock on the lake.

Pio's death is being treated as a drowning, according to a statement from DEEP.