Michigan State University police said Saturday that a private investigator working with a missing young man’s family first alerted them to what is believed to be the youth’s body in a river.
MSU police said a tip from private investigator Ryan Robison early Friday led divers to recover what investigators believe is Brendan Santo’s body in the Red Cedar River, which flows through campus.
The body was found about 1 1/2 miles from where Santo, 18, was last seen Oct. 29 leaving an MSU residence hall during a campus visit ahead of a football game between MSU and Michigan.
Santo, a student at Grand Valley State University, was from Rochester Hills, a Detroit suburb.
Robison has been working with the Santo family and was reviewing underwater video when “he saw something completely submerged in the water” at a logjam that he “strongly suspected was the body of Brendan Santo,” MSU police said.
Robison informed the Santo family and then called 911, leading to the body’s recovery, police said.
Saturday’s updated MSU police statemen t came after a social media post Friday night highlighting Robison’s involvement in the body’s discovery went viral, The Detroit News reported.
MSU police said in the statement that the department had not named Robison publicly Friday because officials weren’t sure whether he or the Santo family wanted that information released.
The department added that it had planned to search the area of the river where the body was found in the coming week.