Man’s body found near Lynn seawall

LYNN – Police are investigating the discovery of a man’s body Wednesday morning near a seawall off the Lynnway but foul play is not suspected.Jose Martinez, 54, of 148 Liberty St., was found fully clothed, face down in the tidal zone, his head close to the wooden pilings and rock wall. Lynn and State Police detectives were at the scene shortly after 9:30 a.m., which coincided with low tide. Two passersby spotted the body at the shoreline.”The investigators from the Lynn Police Department and the State Police detectives from this office do not suspect foul play,” Steve O’Connell, a spokesman for Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett, said Wednesday. “An autopsy will be conducted in Boston today or tomorrow.”The evidence is clear that he had been in the water for some time, but was found on the shoreline,” O’Connell said.The seawall, mostly rip-rap and pilings, rims a basin adjacent to Lynn Heritage State Park. Just behind the location where the body was found, residents of a makeshift village looked on. Most of the spectators live or spend considerable time each day in the village of tents and cardboard boxes, tucked into the scrub woods behind the U-Haul rental store.At high tide, the ocean covers part of the seawall and it remained unclear whether the man’s body washed in or landed from a fall. Investigators determined the man had been in the water less than 16 hours, according to O’Connell.