A Michigan physician who went missing last week was found dead in a frozen pond near his home Tuesday afternoon.
Divers pulled the body of Bolek Payan from the icy pond in Jackson County around 12:30 p.m. after investigators on Monday retrieved security footage from the doctor’s home showing him leave the residence on foot Thursday afternoon, the Blackman-Leoni Township Department of Public Safety said.
Police dogs, drones and officers searched the woods around Payan’s home before authorities cut holes in the ice covering the pond, the public safety department said.
“Detectives believe Dr. Payan would have been deceased, prior to when he was reported missing, due to the weather conditions on the day that he left his residence and the fact that he was in the water,” the department said.
Family friend Nicole Keiser said Payan, who worked at Henry Ford Hospital, dropped his dogs off with her around 8 a.m. Thursday and was expected to pick them up that night.
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Keiser told WILX-TV before Payan’s body was found that it was “out of character” for him to drive home without getting the dogs.
Payan’s specialty was psychiatry, according to his bio on Henry Ford Health’s website. He graduated from Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine in Illinois in 2017, according to Henry Ford Health.
The county’s medical examiner is expected to conduct an autopsy and toxicology test on Payan.
With Post wires
