FAIRFIELD — Maine State Police divers returned to Martin Stream on Tuesday to search for the Skowhegan woman missing since her car plunged into the water adjacent to U.S. Route 201 on Saturday night.
Maine State Police Trooper Matthew Grant said divers wanted to complete another grid search to look for the body of Cora Marley, 62, who was not inside her Pontiac Vibe when it was pulled from the stream late Saturday evening.
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“With limited visibility, varying depths and bottom obstructions, there are opportunities for things to be missed,” said Grant, the dive team commander.
He said the stream’s maximum depth is about 20 feet.
Divers previously combed the stream for about nine hours Sunday as well as Saturday after the 8:35 p.m. crash.
On Monday, the Maine Warden Service used a boat with sonar equipment and a floatplane to expand the search along the Kennebec River.
“We had opened up the search from the immediate site of the car accident to go down river and out in the river,” Grant said.
Marley’s daughter, Paula Berry, watched Tuesday’s search from the bridge embankment.
Berry said she has been comforted the past few days by her mother’s identical twin, Dora Gagnon.
The sisters “were a whole person when they were together,” Berry said.
“I am thankful I have still have my aunt to hug. She feels and sounds just like my mother, so if I close my eyes I can still hug my mother.”
Berry said that Marley called her grandsons Michael, 13, and Mathew, 10, “her boys.”
Marley was driving from Waterville to Skowhegan when the single-car crash happened near the Maine Academy of Natural Sciences on the Good Will-Hinckley campus.
A couple from Canada traveling north behind Marley on U.S. Route 201 told police the Vibe was operating erratically before it launched off an embankment beside a small bridge and soared more than 60 feet over the stream before it struck an abutment on the opposite embankment and went into the water.
Fairfield police Sgt. Matthew Bard said the couple said they did not see brake lights when the Vibe went off the road.
Marley’s brother, Ken Gagnon, a former state senator from Waterville, said his sister took medication for diabetes.
Bard said the front windshield and back window were missing when the car was pulled from the water.
He said it did not appear that Marley had been wearing a seatbelt.
Beth Staples — 861-9252
bstaples@centralmaine.com
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