Body found, believed to be missing Moses Lake man

STRATFORD — A body believed to be that of a Moses Lake man missing since Sept. 5 was found in an irrigation canal near Stratford Thursday.  

The body, believed to be Richard Johnson, 70, was found in the canal near the intersection of Stratford Road Northeast and Road 16 Northeast, said Kyle Foreman, public information officer for the Grant County Sheriff's Office, in a media release. Firefighters from Grant County Fire District 5 recovered the body, he said. 

The location was about eight miles downstream from where Johnson's truck was found Sept. 5. Johnson's truck was found empty, with its motor running, on the road bordering the canal in the 23000 block of Pinto Ridge Road, about nine miles northeast of Soap Lake. 

"A deputy answering the call was flagged down by the irrigation district employee, who then reported what appeared to be a body floating downstream in the canal," Foreman said in an earlier interview. "The deputy and the employee tried to recover the body, but the body continued into a siphon that runs beneath SR 28." 

An autopsy was scheduled for Thursday.