A Michigan physician who went missing last week was found dead in a frozen pond near his home Tuesday afternoon.
Divers pulled the body of Bolek Payan from the icy pond in Jackson County around 12:30 p.m. after investigators on Monday retrieved security footage from the doctor’s home showing him leave the residence on foot Thursday afternoon, the Blackman-Leoni Township Department of Public Safety said.
Police dogs, drones and officers searched the woods around Payan’s home before authorities cut holes within the ice covering the pond, the general public safety department said.
“Detectives consider Dr. Payan would have been deceased, prior to when he was reported missing, attributable to the weather conditions on the day that he left his residence and the undeniable fact that he was within the water,” the department said.
Family friend Nicole Keiser said Payan, who worked at Henry Ford Hospital, dropped his dogs off along with her around 8 a.m. Thursday and was expected to select them up that night.
Keiser told WILX-TV before Payan’s body was found that it was “out of character” for him to drive home without getting the dogs.
Payan’s specialty was psychiatry, in keeping with his bio on Henry Ford Health’s website. He graduated from Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine in Illinois in 2017, in keeping with Henry Ford Health.
The county’s health worker is predicted to conduct an autopsy and toxicology test on Payan.
With Post wires