Man's body, car, recovered from Fox River in Batavia this afternoon

The body of a man in his late 50s was pulled out of the Fox River this afternoon in his car that went into the river Monday night.

It took emergency crews about eight hours over two days to pull the submerged silver BMW out of the river on the east bank in Batavia.

Ice, a strong current and bitter cold this morning made it difficult for diving crews to get to the car, which was under 12 to 15 feet of water.

Police said the body generally matched the description of the registered owner of the car, a St. Charles man in his late 50s or early 60s. The man's name has not been released.

An autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday morning.

Police were called to the scene, near the boat launch north of the dam, at 7:38 p.m. Monday. A witness told police the man seemed to drive the car into the river, Batavia Police Commander Greg Thrun said.

Emergency personnel located the car on the river bottom and found the body inside. But they halted efforts to get the car out at about 11:30 p.m. and waited until daylight.

Fourteen divers from Aurora and St. Charles started working again at 9 this morning. Crews had to break up ice to get at the area, and divers had to be switched out often because of the cold, Thrun said.

Every time the divers tried to hook the car with cables to bring it up, the current moved it.

The car was finally pulled out at about 12:30 this afternoon, a couple hundred yards north of the Batavia North Dam, north of the old Challenge Windmill factory.