Canoeist speaks on finding body believed to be missing Mankato woman
86-year-old Joe Michel jumped into action after hearing about Chuol’s disappearance.
NORTH MANKATO, Minn. (KEYC) - The family of Nyawuor ‘Sunday’ Chuol finally has answers nearly three weeks after she went missing.
“It’s not the answers we wanted, but I can’t imagine having to go years without knowing,” said Chuol’s sister Ny.
The 30-year-old Mankato woman was last seen on April 25 leaving the Casey’s gas station in Eagle Lake.
Authorities believe she walked across Highway 14 to a body of water on the other side.
They repeatedly searched the area, but with no success.
“It’s not easy,” stated Blue Earth County Sheriff’s Office Captain Paul Barta. “You’ve got your mix of wooded areas, grassland, swamp area and just open bodies of water, so a lot of different very, very challenging areas to search.”
18 days went by with no sign of Chuol.
“It is truly exhausting,” Ny added. “It takes so much out of you, your mental space, your sleep.”
But on Friday, a good Samaritan put an end to the Chuol family’s agonizing wait.
“Somebody was in a canoe and had come across a body in that area of the swamp on the south side of Eagle Lake-- southwest, actually, of that body of water,” Barta explained.
Joe Michel, an 86-year-old avid canoeist from North Mankato, jumped into action after hearing about Chuol’s disappearance.
“It was on the news, on television, and actually I had been paddling on the lake probably a week before she drowned,” Michel said.
Michel’s helped several families find missing loved ones over the years.
He began in high school, shortly after losing a close friend in a drowning accident.
“Leslie Halverson, we were good buddies and he canoed too,” Michel mentioned.
Halverson was with a friend on Lake Washington when waves overtook their canoe.
“That kind of stirred me. I’ll never forget it. I can still see it,” Michel described. “They found both of them, and that’s what kind of started me.”
In May 1961, Michel found the body of 15-year-old Roger Torgerson in the Blue Earth River.
In the early ‘70s, he said he found the body of a missing man in Mankato by the old Main Street Bridge.
On Friday, he found a body believed to be Chuol in Eagle Lake.
“I said a little prayer when I had first seen her,” Michel recalled. “I called home and told [my wife], Bev, and then I called 911.”
The Chuol family is thankful to have closure.
“It wasn’t the best outcome for my family, but it’s so important to have that support,” Ny stated.
A GoFundMe has been setup to help with Chuol’s funeral expenses.
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