Clearwater Lake death considered accidental

CLEARWATER LAKE, Mo. -- An autopsy was performed Monday on a Piedmont man, whom authorities believe may have died when he suffered a heart attack while cleaning his fish near the Clearwater Dam.

The Wayne County Sheriff's Department received a call about 4:30 p.m. Saturday from a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers employee who reported "a body was on the eddy at Clearwater Lake," said Wayne County Sheriff Dean Finch, who described the eddy as a "little strip of ground" that goes into the lake on the north side of the dam.

"When the call came in, the ambulance was dispatched, and my department was dispatched," as was the Missouri State Highway Patrol and its Division of Drug and Crime Control, Finch said. Upon their arrival, Finch said, deputies found Marvin L. "Sonny" Miller, 74, dead.

"He was by his truck, but it was there close to the eddy," Finch said. "He was cleaning fish. ... It was several fish. He had some of them cleaned already and fileted out."

Miller, Finch said, was seen fishing at that location about 1 p.m. by people who went "somewhere else to fish. ... DDCC (investigators) talked to the witnesses who saw him there." Finch said "everything was (at the scene)," including Miller's wallet.

It appears Miller had a heart attack, but he also had a knife wound to both of his legs, said Finch, who indicated the knife wounds as the reason DDCC investigators were called.

The autopsy, he said, was being performed Monday at Mineral Area Regional Medical Center in Farmington, Missouri.