Photo from the scene courtesy Washington County Sheriff’s Office
A woman last known to be near Hagg Lake was found dead Friday afternoon more than a month after she disappeared there on February 5.
According to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, a boater found a woman’s body in Henry Hagg Lake near Boat Ramp C just after 2:30 p.m. Friday, March 12, the same location her vehicle had been found by deputies in February.
The woman was identified by deputies as 38-year-old Tara Callahan.
An autopsy on Saturday, March 13 at the Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office ruled her death a suicide.
Deputies were first called to an Aloha apartment complex around 11:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 5. and were told that Callahan had headed to the lake, possibly to kill herself.
A search located her vehicle at Boat Ramp C, but despite efforts that weekend by the Washington County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue Team, the Sheriff’s Office Marine Patrol, the Remotely Operated Vehicle Team, and the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office Dive/Rescue Team who searched the waters, the shoreline and the wooded areas nearby, Callahan was not found.
The search was briefly stalled during the President’s Day ice storm.
“Our deputies are still searching the lake daily via boat, as weather permits, but as you can imagine, the weather has made that impossible the past few days,” Washington Co. Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Sgt. Danny DiPietro said in an email on February 16.
The search resumed, but until Friday’s discovery, was absent of success.
Chas Hundley is the editor of the Banks Post and sister news publications the Gales Creek Journal and the Salmonberry Magazine. He grew up in Gales Creek and has a cat.