BANGOR, Maine — The 9-year-old girl from Lee who drowned Friday while swimming Mattawamkeag River has been identified as Carissa Jo Babcock, an official from the Maine Warden Service said on Monday afternoon.
Carissa’s body was recovered about 9:30 a.m. Saturday by Maine game wardens, Cpl. John MacDonald of the Maine Warden Service said in a news release.
MacDonald said the the girl likely drowned while attempting to cross the river with four adults and two other children shortly after 6:30 p.m. Friday.
The state medical examiner’s office out of Bangor performed an exam at Clay Funeral Home in Lincoln.
Carissa disappeared while swimming with her mother, Charis Rollins, other adults and a younger sibling in Sleugundy Heater Gorge, about 1.5 miles south of the town-owned Mattawamkeag Wilderness Campground and Park, Park Manager Carlton Norris said over the weekend.
The incident will be reviewed by the Penobscot County district attorney’s office, which District Attorney R. Christopher Almy said Monday is “fairly routine. We need to see the evidence.”
The search included a Maine Warden Service search plane, Mattawamkeag and Lincoln firefighters, plus individual volunteers and members of the Down East Emergency Medicine Institute, an Orono-based volunteer search-and-rescue group, Coombs said.
Family and friends may visit from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Clay Funeral Home in Lincoln, where services are scheduled for 3 p.m. Thursday, according to her obituary.