7 Found Dead in Partially Submerged Vehicle in Marsh

VACAVILLE, Calif. — Seven bodies were found jammed in a partly submerged, overturned station wagon in the shallows of a San Francisco Bay marsh Wednesday, the California Highway Patrol reported.

The 10-year-old car apparently went out of control on a gravel portion of Grizzly Island Road, about 45 miles northeast of San Francisco, CHP Officer Jerry Kurrle said. The area is crisscrossed with sloughs of varying depth.

The accident was discovered about 7:30 a.m. by a state fish and game warden on routine patrol, Kurrle said.

The occupants were a man and woman and five children. Their identities were being withheld by authorities pending notification of relatives, but Kurrle said they were believed to be from Solano County.

The patrolman said the car apparently was speeding, failed to make a turn and went off the embankment and landed upside down in four or five feet of water. The front windows were rolled down when the vehicle was discovered, Kurrle said. Autopsies were planned.

The warden spotted the exposed tires and the underside of the car, the report said.

Kurrle theorized that the accident happened Tuesday because the driver had checked in that day at the entrance to the fish and game preserve on Grizzly Island.

The accident followed by three days one that took four lives when a car careened off a drawbridge above Three Mile Slough, just off the Sacramento River.

Authorities were trying to find out why the car went off the bridge, despite the sounding of warning bells and a lowered barrier.