Police Identify Man Found Drowned In Central Park

CENTRAL PARK, NY — One of the two people found dead in Central Park last week was a 36-year-old homeless man, an NYPD spokesman told Patch.

Anthony McAfee's body was pulled from Swan Lake — a small pond in the vicinity of Fifth Avenue and East 59th Street — on the morning of Wednesday, May 10, police told Patch. After drowning in the shallow body of water, McAfee's body was likely in the water for up to a week, NYPD Captain Peter Andrea, the commanding officer at the Central Park Precinct, said last week at a community meeting.

No foul play was expected in McAfee's death, Andrea said last week.

McAfee's body was pulled from Swan Lake one day after a still unidentified man's body was found in the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis reservoir. The body, found in the reservoir by Central Park Conservancy cleaners, will be hard to identify due to prolonged time in the water, Andrea said. The Medical Examiner's preliminary findings reveal the man may have been in the water as long as one month.

Both bodies showed no signs of trauma, which allowed investigators to "eliminate theories of criminality," Andrea said. As of Wednesday night Andrea could only say that the bodies were male, but could not identify those drowned or conclude how they ended up in the water. The NYPD is "very confident" that no foul play occurred in the deaths but is still investigating and looking at "every angle," Andrea said.

Photo by Google Maps.