If you were traveling on the eastbound lane of Interstate 68’s Cheat Lake Bridge around noon or thereafter during last Sunday’s snowstorm, Monongalia County Sheriff Todd Forbes wants to hear from you.
The sheriff wants to know if you saw anything, or have cell phone video or photographs, detailing what may have happened to Kevin Lataille that day.
People are asked to call 304-291-7260.
Lataille, 59, of Smithfield, Pa., was on his way home after completing his shift at the Patteson Drive Eat’n Park.
He never made it.
A week to the day after his disappearance, a dive team from the Murrysville, Pa., Medical One emergency responder network punched through the frozen-over lake below the bridge on Sunday.
Lataille’s car – a bronze-colored Hyundai Tucson, Pennsylvania license plate KSD 4278 – had been submerged in 12 feet of water.
His body was still in the car, said Forbes, who announced the man’s identity Monday.
The Murrysville divers were among the 100 or so responders from multiple units gathered at the water’s edge, with the highway bridge towering overhead.
Before that, search teams made up of police and Lataille’s friends canvassed the roads by car in extreme weather.
Others patrolled swaths of areas on foot and enlisted drones in the search.
While the accident has prompted wide speculation on social media – did a jack-knifing truck inadvertently force Lataille’s car off the bridge and into the water 80 feet below? – Forbes said Monday he wasn’t going to speculate.
“It’s still too early,” the sheriff said. “We’re still trying to get that piece together.”
Forbes said his department has launched two simultaneous investigations directly related to the accident, and that he expects information sometime this week.
A live camera trained on the roadway from the West Virginia Department of Transportation’s 511 network won’t be part of either one, Forbes said – since the transmissions from that camera and others down the line are live-only.
“They don’t record anything because they don’t have the storage space,” he said.
Meanwhile, Darrick Genaro, the incident commander of Murrysville Medical One, said his divers spotted the car and quickly determined someone was inside.
With warming temperatures on the way, the car likely would have settled on the bottom of the lake had the discovery not been made Sunday, he said.
“I have to credit the police work and the people who were searching,” he said.
A Mon deputy was able to identify the vehicle and the victim once the car was hoisted by crane back to the surface of the bridge, Gerano said.
Lataille was still wearing his seatbelt.
