By Tom Gilchrist
Staff Writer
OTISVILLE — Carl R. Jennings glanced at his neighbor’s pond along Hammil Road for days, wondering if he was looking at a piece of trash or a dead deer or dog wedged in the ice.
On Wednesday night, he looked again — at something he suspected was much more ominous.
“I went over there and I saw what looked like the soles of some boots,” said Jennings, 75, who eyed the pond once more on Thursday morning and called 911 after spotting a human corpse floating face down in the pond, which was partially covered with ice.
Police confirmed the body is that of Ken Gruno, 27, a LakeVille High graduate missing since Dec. 27 at about 2 a.m. when he was last seen walking west along Main Street in Otisville, away from the Otisville Hotel bar at the corner of Main and M-15.
The pond in a front yard in Genesee County’s Forest Township, about one-half mile from the bar, is visible from the road. Police haven’t released a cause of death, but said Thursday there are no signs of foul play and that an autopsy will take place.
A security camera provided a last glimpse of Gruno, a married Wayne State University student home for Christmas at the time of his disappearance, seen walking west from the bar. The temperature in the Otisville area at that time — 2 a.m. Dec. 27 — was about 44 degrees, according to Sara Schultz, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oakland County’s White Lake Township.
The pond where Gruno was found is north of the hotel bar.
Otisville residents have varying opinions on what happened to Gruno, but Jennings doesn’t mince words.
“It was foul play,” Jennings said. “You can tell that. That kid ain’t gonna walk in that pond and drown himself.”
Volunteers and police have searched for Gruno for weeks around and near the village of Otisville.
“I am surprised they found him in that location, because they said when he left the bar that night that he was walking to the west from the hotel (bar),” said Jacob Seidell, 22, who lives along Hammil Road next to Jennings.
Leonard Carpenter, 86, an Otisville resident, said searchers have looked around yards, ponds and buildings following Gruno’s disappearance.
“I’m surprised they found him where they did, because after all the searches they’ve done, I didn’t think they’d find him around here like that,” Carpenter said.
Susan Goralski, 44, of Lapeer, the late Ken Gruno’s cousin, said searchers had looked in the area of the pond where Gruno’s body was found Thursday.
“It kind of, sort of, hurts because we were in that area,” Goralski said.
Janet Fettig, 72, said she and others including Beatrice Shade, 81, were at the Forest Township Senior Center in Otisville when word came of discovery of Gruno’s body Thursday.
“My thought is that he just wandered, and it was dark, and he didn’t know where he was going,” Fettig said.
“I just thought he ran away,” Shade said.
Discovery of the body occurred days before a Sunday fundraiser from 2 to 6:30 p.m. to raise money to pay for private detective Dave Schmieder to investigate the Gruno case. The fundraiser still will occur at the Forest Township Hall along Main Street in Otisville. Admission is $5 per person for a meal of mostaccioli, salad, bread, dessert and drink.
Proceeds will help pay for the investigator and for funeral expenses, according to Goralski. Donations also may be made to the “Help Find Ken Gruno” account at ELGA Credit Union branches in Genesee and Lapeer counties.
Just before deadline Friday, Michigan State Police told The Advertiser that Genesee County medical examiner Dr. Brian Hunter ruled that the cause of death was accidental drowning with no sign of physical injury or trauma.
Tom Gilchrist is a staff writer for the Tuscola County Advertiser. You can contact him at tgilchrist82@gmail.com.