The body of a man found in the Mississippi River near Vicksburg April 4 was identified Thursday as a 58-year-old Arkansas man who disappeared in November from a river logging operation near Clarksdale in Coahoma County.

David A. Lawson of Roe was identified by a joint investigation of authorities from the Coahama Sheriff’s Department and the Mississippi state crime lab, said Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace.

The cause of death was freshwater drowning, said Coahoma County Coroner Scotty Meredith.

“Apparently his boat had drifted away,” Meredith said. “You can see where he had started running after it. He ran out of his boots, which were found in the mud. Once he got in the water, he couldn’t get out of it and went under.”

Meredith said Lawson disappeared from a spot near what is called Jackson Point cutoff, about 144 road miles north of Vicksburg. “That’s a long way in river miles,” he said.

Lawson’s wife, Cynthia, said he was a weekend watchman for International Paper and would leave home Friday evenings and return Mondays.

He apparently had taken his boat from his post on the west bank of the river to a small island to tend to three dogs he kept there, and that’s where the boat got away.

David Lawson was a commercial fisherman and avid hunter. “He would go coon hunting all the time with his daughter, who is 11,” Cynthia Lawson said.

David Lawson also leaves a 13-year-old son, a 26-year-old daughter and a grandson who is nearly 2, his wife said.

“It’s bittersweet,” she said. “It’s good to have closure, but it’s hard to feel like I’m starting all over dealing with his death.”

A memorial service was held not long after his disappearance, she said, because the family knew he was gone and “we couldn’t just be in limbo.”

Pace said U. S. Coast Guard officials notified the Coahoma County sheriff’s office Nov. 14 around 5:30 p.m. that an abandoned boat had been found on the Mississippi River in the area west of the Coahoma-Bolivar county line.

Later, shortly after midnight, the Coast Guard notified authorities that the boat was registered to Lawson.

Lawson’s 2004 Chevrolet pickup from which he had launched the boat was also found at a boat landing in Coahoma County.

His body was not found until April 4, at a spot near Kings Point Island, about four miles north of the Mississippi River bridges at Vicksburg.

It was spotted by a passing towboat operator, who notified employees at Ergon Marine. After piloting a smaller boat near the shore, Ergon notified Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace, who went to the scene with deputy coroner Kelda Bailess and several investigators.

Pace worked with several jurisdictions upriver that had missing persons cases and provided dental records to the state crime lab to make the identification.

Cynthia Lawson said investigators requested dental records on April 5.