DATE: Monday, July 7, 1997                  TAG: 9707070060

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                      LENGTH:   30 lines

2 BODIES RECOVERED AFTER SEPARATE WATER ACCIDENTS

A fisherman found the body of a Hopewell man who drowned in the James River after his boat became swamped, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission said Sunday.

The body of Emmett R. Walker Jr., 27, was recovered shortly after 8 a.m. Sunday by the VMRC and Coast Guard about a half-mile southwest of the Newport News Coal Terminal, commission spokesman Wilford Kale said.

Walker was fishing with his wife and another couple in a 15-foot boat Friday afternoon when the boat became flooded when the current rose. He disappeared during or immediately before rescue attempts began, Kale said. The other three were rescued.

In Lancaster County, a body believed to be that of a man who disappeared Saturday in the Corrotoman River while being towed by a boat was found shortly before 8 p.m. Sunday, Kale said.

Steven P. Spiess, 30, of Lancaster County, was being towed on a waterboard by a friend, Alan Baughan. Baughan turned the boat around immediately after seeing Spiess slip off the board but could not find him.

The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and the VMRC used boats and planes in the search for Spiess, who was not wearing a flotation vest, Kale said. KEYWORDS: DROWNINGS

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