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RIDGEFIELD, Conn. A body thought to be that of a man who was the subject of search that started at 3 p.m. Sunday was found in the pool of a Ridgefield home, Police Chief John Roche said late Monday afternoon.
"We have recovered a body from the pool we believe to be the body of the 23-year-old male we've been looking for," Roche said. The pool is located at 786 Ridgebury Road, the same place where the missing man was last seen.
Underwater search teams had spent hours Monday combing through three ponds in the area where Alex Bergman, a 23-year-old from Somers, N.Y., had gone missing early Sunday. Friends and witnesses believed he had wandered off from a gathering. Bergman was reported missing to police at 3 p.m. Sunday, nearly 12 hours after witnesses said they saw him leave the pool.
The police chief described the pool as "murky" and said that was a reason the body was not discovered earlier.
"The water was very very murky, very difficult and unable to see," Roche said. From the surface, "nothing can be seen."
"We interviewed the occupants, those that were there, and we had stories which seemed consistent with walking away from the area," he said. "So we called in Connecticut State Police, New York State Police, Westchester County, the Ridgefield Fire Department, neighboring fire departments, and everyone was very cooperative in doing a full manhunt of the area."
Police exhausted all other options before returning to the scene, he said.
"My detective commander as well as the detective came back to the scene to do a further examination, and that's when we revealed there was a body in the pool," Roche said.
He declined to speak about drug or alcohol use at the gathering. "We're still investigating the circumstances" surrounding the death, Roche said.
The police department has notified Bergman's family and was awaiting the medical examiner Monday night.
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