Times staff
Sunday, September 12, 2010
WEEKI WACHEE — Authorities are investigating the death of an agricultural worker whose body was found Saturday night in northwest Hernando County.
According to the Hernando County Sheriff's Office, a crew of Hispanic workers from the Immokalee area had been picking palmetto berries in the vicinity of the Chassahowitzka Wildlife Management Area, west of U.S. 19 just south of the Hernando-Citrus county line. The workers notified the Sheriff's Office about 7 p.m. Saturday that one of the crew members had not returned to their truck.
Hernando deputies and state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers, with help from a helicopter and all-terrain vehicles, began searching for the man. They found his body about 10 p.m. in a wooded area about a half-mile down a dirt road west of U.S. 19, north of Centralia Road.
Sheriff's officials did not say how the man had died, and they did not release his name, pending notification of relatives. The major crime unit and the medical examiner's office were notified.