The Boone/Callaway Medical Examiner's Office has determined the cause of death for a Holts Summit man found dead in a lake on Feb. 10 as "drowning with contributing cause of high alcohol content," Lt. Clay Chism with the Callaway County Sheriff's Office said.
Mark Wenkel, 55 of Holts Summit, was discovered in a lake nearby Copper Road, south of Holts Summit, after 10 p.m. Feb. 10. Sheriff's deputies were responding to a call of a suspicious vehicle parked on private property on Copper Road when a neighborhood resident saw a body floating in the lake, Chism previously told the Fulton Sun.
With assistance from the medical examiner's office, deputies and investigators assessed the scene that night. The Holts Summit Fire Protection District removed Wenkel's body from the lake, and it was transported to the medical examiner's office for an autopsy. That was completed the next day, but the official cause of death was pending toxicology results. Police never suspected foul play.
The "suspicious" vehicle deputies responded to - a white Ford Explorer - belonged to Wenkel. A local neighbor was home between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. that evening and said the vehicle wasn't present.
Wenkel had friends who lived near Copper Road and he would visit them in the residential and commercial area, Chism said previously.