The state medical examiner has positively identified the body of a man found floating in Center Hill Lake recently.
Authorities found the body to be that of Joseph Loupe of Rutherford County. Loupe went missing in November, 2010 near the area where his body was found on Oct 11, the date that would have been his 45th birthday.
Loupe's badly decomposed  remains surfaced in the area of Center Hill Marina, where he apparently rented a pontoon boat on November 2, 2010. The boat was found traveling in a circle not far from the marina less than an hour later.
Sheriff Patrick Ray said that it was something of a surprise to find the body after nearly three years.
“In all of my career as a law enforcement officer, I have never heard of a body surfacing after being in the lake for that long a time,” the sheriff said.
“It is believed that Mr. Loupe either fell or jumped into the water,” Ray said. “A fanny pack was found on the body that contained Joseph Loupe's identification, but the body was so badly decomposed that we could not be sure who it was. After his body was sent to Nashville for an autopsy, the state medical examiner asked us to see if we could find x-rays to help confirm his identity,” said the sheriff.
“The pathologist in Nashville was able to take x-rays to make a positive identification,” Ray shared. “The pathologist said the cause of death is drowning. No foul play is suspected.”
The sheriff said his department had looked into the matter repeatedly over the three-year period since Louper’s disappearance, but the search obviously turned up no results.
“As soon as my Department received the missing person information on Mr. Loupe, we entered him into the National Crime Information Center as missing,” Ray said. “Over the last three years we did investigation work into the disappearance of Mr. Loupe. We also checked tips that we received, but nothing ever came from it.”