Peabody woman’s body pulled from Lynn pond

LYNN – The body of a woman police believe is missing Peabody resident Alice Nunes was pulled from Flax Pond Wednesday with the help of a diver who found John F. Kennedy Jr.’s body following an ocean airplane crash 10 years ago.Police divers and G /J Towing workers pulled a 2007 black Lexus out of Flax at 3:40 p.m. Wednesday 40 to 50 feet from where Carter Road makes a sharp left turn. Police found a woman’s body in the back seat and Nunes’ employee identification at Peabody-based Analogic. “It was a picture identification of Alice Nunes,” said District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett, adding, “We have no reason to believe it is not her.”Until Nunes is officially identified by the state Medical Examiner’s office, her death is classified as unattended.Pending that identification and declaration of a cause of death, the 11-month search for the 58-year-old Lowell Street resident appears to be over. It ended much as it began with Nunes’ family appealing for help to find her.Police said the Nunes family recently hired Lynn native and search diver Rick Horgan to search Sluice Pond and Flax Pond for Nunes’ car.Although the ponds were previously searched by police, the two water bodies are significant in the Nunes search because the “best information” provided to police, according to Blodgett, indicated Nunes spent time in the Four Winds bar on Sluice Pond the night she disappeared.Horgan searched Sluice earlier this week using side-scan sonar and searched Flax on Tuesday. Blodgett said Horgan located two underwater metal masses in Flax meriting more detailed searches. Divers on Wednesday determined one of the masses was a missing car stolen from Peabody 10 years ago. the other mass was the black Lexus.Divers found the car submerged in about 16 feet of water Wednesday morning and used Jaws of Life extraction equipment to open its locked doors. Nunes’ husband, John, came to the search site shortly after divers found the Lexus and spoke with detectives after it was removed from the water.”It was a private conversation with Mr. Nunes expressing condolences,” Blodgett said.Nunes reached at his home Wednesday night declined to comment on the discovery.It was Nunes’ daughter who told police she was talking by cell phone with her mother at 8:45 p.m. last Dec. 15 when Alice Nunes said, “I’m about to hit water.”Police tracked the cell phone call to a transmission tower in Wyoma Square but the tracking was not sophisticated enough for them to pinpoint the call’s exact location.Police launched what Peabody Det. Robert Church on Wednesday called a “needle in the haystack search” for Nunes focusing on water bodies within at least a 15-mile radius of Wyoma Square. They conducted 12 dive searches and State Police divers as well as Horgan searched the Saugus River after a waterfront merchant speculated that Nunes could have taken a wrong turn and driven down a boat ramp into the river.”Eleven months sounds like a long time but it’s been an ongoing search,” said Church.Police can only speculate about how Nunes’ ended up driving down Carter Road, a side street off Broadway just over a half mile from the Four Winds. Blodgett said police have “some indication she was confused about where she was.”Carter Road residents wonder if Nunes turned onto the entrance to Carter nearest Flax Pond and drove into the pond when she failed to make the sharp bend in the road.”Coming down that side you can barely make that corner. There should be some kind of guard rail,” said neighbor Mary Richard.Richard said the house that has the best view of where Nunes could have entered the water was vacant last December. Her sister lives on the pond end of Carter Road and recalled the night two years ago when a driver plowed into the pond at the same location where Nunes may have entered the water. The driver was not hurt.