Searchers find bodies of 4 missing S. Idaho boaters

AMERICAN FALLS, Idaho — Search and rescue crews have recovered the bodies of four men who drowned in a southern Idaho reservoir after a prank turned deadly during a weekend boating trip. Authorities said the dead were 57-year-old Darrel Leroy Shappart Jr., 26-year-old Jared Alan Hale, 30-year-old Aaron Jeff Hale, and 30-year-old Stephen Jacob Verbeck. The search began Sunday evening after 911 dispatchers got a cell phone call from a young child who was adrift with four other kids on a boat in the middle of the American Falls reservoir. The kids, all between 2 and 9 years old, told deputies that one of the four men they were with was standing in the boat when another pushed him into the water as a joke. But the man couldn’t swim, and one by one the other three jumped in to try to save him. Only one of the men grabbed a life jacket before plunging into the water, but he wasn’t wearing the device. Searchers using special scanning radar found the men’s bodies Monday evening.