LEE COUNTY, Fla. – A dayslong search has been suspended for two men who went missing during a fishing trip off Florida’s Gulf Coast.
According to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, 57-year-old Randall Spivey and 33-year-old Brandon Billmaier were reported missing on Friday.
Spivey, who is an attorney in Fort Myers, and his nephew left Friday morning on a 42-foot Freeman boat from a home in the 15000 block of Intracoastal Court in Fort Myers, according to WINK News.
The boat was later found roughly 70 miles west of Fort Myers, still in gear.
The U.S. Coast Guard has been searching over the weekend for the duo 70 miles off the Fort Myers coast. The search continued through sunset Monday with the Coast Guard announcing it would suspend its search efforts.
“After the utmost consideration and careful review of all factors involved in this case, the Coast Guard made the difficult decision to suspend its active search efforts,” Capt. Corrie Sergent, commanding officer of Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg, said in a statement. “There is no harder decision than suspending a search. I am incredibly grateful for the crews, partners, and volunteers across this community who executed this massive search with the utmost professionalism, persistence, and compassion. We offer our sincere condolences to the families and friends of Mr. Spivey and Mr. Billmaier during this extremely difficult time.”
The U.S. Coast Guard said with the help of partner agency crews, it had searched “by air and sea, covering approximately 6,700 square miles, about the size of the state of Connecticut.”
The search was one of the largest in Southwest Florida history.
The FBI is now leading the missing person investigation.