Lake County Gazette

The Sheriff's Traffic Crash investigators are currently probing the death of a driver whose vehicle was discovered submerged in the Des Plaines River on Thursday.

A news release from the Sheriff's Office indicated that deputies were dispatched following a report of a pickup truck found submerged in the Des Plaines River at approximately 7:30 p.m. on April 4. Upon arrival at a residence located in the 36500 block of North Route 41 in unincorporated Gurnee, they discovered the vehicle partly submerged with the driver deceased.

According to another Sheriff's Office news release, the homeowner informed investigators that upon his return home, he noticed tire tracks in his yard. These tracks led him to the river where he found a 2016 Toyota Tacoma.

The Sheriff's Office telecommunicators conducted an investigation into the truck's license plate and determined that it had fled from a local police department on April 3 around 9:45 p.m., approximately 1.5 miles away, as per another news release from the Sheriff's Office. They also established that this vehicle had been reported as a wrong-way driver on April 3 at 3:40 a.m. in the area of Route 173 and Kilbourne Road.

According to yet another news release from the Sheriff's Office, preliminary identification has revealed that the pickup truck driver was a 79-year-old man from Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. The Lake County Coroner's Office responded to the scene and an autopsy is being scheduled.

In line with information provided by another Sheriff's Office news release, crash investigators are striving to determine both when and what caused this fatal incident.