Body found in Lower Valley irrigation canal

GRANGER, Wash. — Yakima County sheriff’s detectives are investigating the discovery of a body in an irrigation canal outside of Granger.

The body was discovered Thursday by a federal worker conducting routine maintenance on a small diversion dam in the Marion Drain near State Route 22 and Track Road, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.

The body, believed to be that of a man, appeared to have been in the water for several months. It was so decomposed that nothing further could be determined at the scene, according to the news release.

An autopsy will be scheduled today or Saturday to try to identify the man and determine a cause of death, county Coroner Jack Hawkins said.

There was no immediate indication whether the body might be connected to the county’s first reported homicide of 2010.

That case also involved the discovery of a body in the Marion Drain, one of the county’s few irrigation canals that has water flowing year-round.

The body of Fernando Figueroa, a 20-year-old Yakima man, was discovered Jan. 7 southwest of Toppenish. He had been repeatedly shot and wrapped in plastic.

Joseph Ezequiel John, a 19-year-old Canadian man living in Yakima, was last seen with Figueroa on Dec. 30. He was not considered a suspect, but sheriff’s detectives have been unable to find him since Figueroa’s body was found.

No arrests or suspects have been announced in Figueroa’s death.

So far this year, 10 homicides have been reported across the county, most of them in Yakima.