ERIE (AP) — Pennsylvania State Police and a prosecutor will attend the autopsy of a woman’s body found along the New York shoreline of Lake Erie to determine whether it belongs to a suspected homicide victim.
Authorities want to know if the body to be autopsied Wednesday by the Chautauqua County, New York coroner is that of 51-year-old Karen Leclair. The body was found Tuesday afternoon near Dunkirk, New York.
The woman from Albion, Pennsylvania, was reported missing June 11 by her husband, a 48-year-old commercial fisherman named Christopher Leclair.
Authorities in Erie County, Pennsylvania charged him with criminal homicide because they say dock surveillance cameras show Leclair left on his boat alone June 11, but that his wife was on board the day before — yet didn’t return with him.
Leclair’s attorney says he “maintains his innocence.”
