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Body of Kitchen Worker, Missing for Weeks, Found Frozen in Abandoned New Hope Pool

Police say the body had to be cut from the pool, and they are investigating the victim's identity and cause of death.

What to Know

  • A man's body was found encased in ice inside a frozen pool just off of New Hope, Pennsylvania's main street.
  • The victim, identified as 29-year-old Jose Quiroz Marcial, was missing since December. He was a cook at the Lambertville Station Restaurant.
  • Coworkers were worried Marcial was detained by federal immigration agents when he disappeared. They were shocked to learn of his death.

A cook who worked at a popular Lambertville, New Jersey, restaurant was found frozen in an abandoned New Hope, Pennsylvania, swimming pool weeks after the man was last seen.

The body of 29-year-old Jose Quiroz Marcial was found around 2 p.m. inside a pool just off New Hope's Main Street — the town's main drag.

The in-ground swimming pool, which was uncovered and abandoned, is located in a construction zone directly behind the Marsha Brown restaurant and the Logan Inn.

A spokesman for the Bucks County District Attorney's Office said Marcial was encased in ice and had to be cut from the pool. It's unclear how long his body was frozen there. Temperatures plunged to around 6 degrees Fahrenheit overnight Monday as Arctic air enveloped the region.

Marcial worked in the kitchen at the Lambertville Station Restaurant across the Delaware River in Lambertville.

Chris Beall, a chef at the restaurant, said Marcial was last seen in early December. When he didn't show up for work on Dec. 13, 2018, Beall said coworkers were concerned Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had detained Marcial, who is originally from Mexico.

Beall said the staff was shocked to learn about Marcial's death. He had worked there for the past five years working his way up from a dishwasher to one of the restaurant's best sauté cooks, he said.

New Hope police on Wednesday said Marcial's death was accidential, but did not ellaborate as to how he might have wound up in the pool.

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