The San Joaquin County Medical Examiner’s Office on Wednesday identified a 98-year-old man who was found dead inside a vehicle extracted from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta near Stockton in August.
Richard West, who was last known to be a Stockton resident, was identified as the man located submerged in a Dodge Stratus sedan on Aug. 9 in Little Potato Slough, near Eight Mile Road Ferry, according to the medical examiner’s office.
In August when the car was found, the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office said that it was registered to a missing person but the name of the person missing was not released.
Heather Brent, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office, said this week that her office had not yet received confirmation of the person’s identity.
Prior to the man and vehicle being pulled up from the waters, sheriff’s deputies from San Joaquin and Sacramento counties, along with a dive team, had been working all day to recover cars that had ended up in the Delta.
A spokesperson for the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office said the multi-agency operation was prompted by reports of vehicles in the water.
Three vehicles in total had been found in the water in the same area that day.
The other two were a red Chevrolet Suburban that was stolen from Stockton, and a car reportedly involved in a crash where the person was able to get out of the car, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
