GILL — A 10-year-old girl out for an afternoon Memorial Day swim with her father spotted a body floating, face down, in the Connecticut River on Monday afternoon.
A confirmation on the identity of the individual found in the river will come from the medical examiner’s office in the coming days, but the clothing on the body matches a description of murder suspect 24-year-old Tyler Hagmaier said Gill Police Chief David Hastings.
Just half a mile downstream from the French King Bridge, a spot known for suicide attempts, Selectboard Chairman Greg Snedeker and his daughter, Mia, saw the body near their dock at their home on a private way off of Route 2.
“At first, she was kind of shocked,” said Snedeker. “It was far away enough … It wasn’t a traumatic experience for her.”
As he got closer to the body to make sure it wasn’t a floating log, he saw what looked like a leather jacket, a pink shirt and sneakers poking out of the water only about 30 feet from his dock.
He called the police and told his daughter to run up to the house to meet with Hastings at the beginning of the driveway, while he watched the body to make sure it didn’t float away.
State Police came to the scene to investigate and emergency workers slipped the body into a bag to remove it from the river around 5 p.m., Snedeker said.
After more than two decades of living in their home at Trenholm Way, Snedeker said, he is surprised that this is only the first body that has washed up near his dock.
At least two people are thought to have attempted suicide by jumping from the French King Bridge in the past few weeks.
One is former Montague resident, Hagmaier. He abandoned his car on the bridge after stabbing a neighbor to death in Plymouth.
State police were out canvassing the area by helicopter and searching the woods around on the bridge in an attempt to locate Hagmaier, but the search had since run cold, said Gill police chief Hastings.
Hagmaier is suspected of killing 76-year-old Quincy College professor Vibeke Rasmussen, stabbing the woman more than 30 times, according to the statement issued by the Plymouth District Attorney’s Office.
According to court documents, Hagmaier was also charged with stabbing a man in the chest with a 10-inch serrated kitchen knife at a Montague home about five years ago.
Another man believed to have jumped from the bridge in the last few weeks is Greenfield resident and former DPW superintendent John Bean, whose car was found abandoned and unlocked, near the bridge.
In the months leading up to the suspected suicide, Bean had been anxious and depressed, according to his wife of 31 years, Jan Jee Bean.
Over the years, there have been a number of suicide attempts at the about 140-foot structure. To monitor the bridge, police said that town officials have been pushing the state Department of Transportation to install cameras for the last few years.
Now, the town might finally get their wish. Last week, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation announced a plan to install a web-based mobile camera system at the bridge and construct a barrier to prevent people from jumping, said a spokesperson from MassDOT.