POWELL, Ohio (AP) — The skies were mostly clear and weeks of sweltering heat had finally broken as 33-year-old Jose Mario Pineda Dias and his 28-year-old wife, Marina Suyapa Regalado, set out with their two children for some leisurely fishing in an Ohio river. A second Honduran couple and an adult friend joined them. A photo snapped by a passing boater sometime Sunday apparently shows them about thigh deep in the Scioto River, fishing poles in hand, standing around a big log. Calm as the surface appeared, the river was running high and fast, according to U.S. Geological Survey data. All five adults ended up drowning, authorities have said.After the photo was taken, if it was indeed them, the group might have returned to shore. It is not quite clear. What Delaware County Sheriff Jeffrey Balzer has said is that one of the adults was struggling to swim in the river when several others went into the water to help. All five were swept under, he said. The two women’s bodies were recovered Sunday and the three men’s bodies were found Monday.
On Tuesday, Honduran authorities confirmed that four of the five adults were Honduran citizens — Dias and Regalado and another married couple whose names have not yet been released. The fifth adult also has yet to be identified.Flabia Zamora, director of consular affairs at the Honduran Foreign Ministry, told reporters Tuesday that they were working with U.S. authorities to bring their bodies home.
