This article was originally published on goerie.com on June 23, 2017 

The Erie County Coroner’s Office confirmed that a human leg was found Thursday evening near the Elk Creek Access of West Lake Road in Lake City.

Deputy Coroner John Maloney said the office will examine the leg later on Friday. Pennsylvania State Police are investigating.

State police reported on Thursday night that a fisherman had found human remains near the access area about 8 p.m.

Police are expected to explore whether the leg is that of Albion-area resident Karen Leclair, 51, whom investigators believe disappeared into Lake Erie on the afternoon of June 10 but wasn’t reported missing by her husband until a day later. Leclair was last seen on her and her husband’s commercial fishing boat, which is docked in Erie.

Her body has never been recovered, and her husband, Christopher S. Leclair, is charged with killing her. He remains in the Erie County Prison.

Police have made an effort to obtain Karen Leclair’s DNA to use to identify her body whenever it is found. Investigators retrieved Karen Leclair’s personal items, such as a hairbrush, from the couple’s Elk Creek Township house.

Police have also searched the couple’s boat, the Doris-M, for signs of a struggle, and police have been using the boat’s GPS system to track its movements on June 10 to try to find Karen Leclair’s body.

Christopher Leclair’s June 11 report that his wife was missing set off a massive, nearly 30-hour search of the lake that involved federal, state and local search teams that scoured the water by boat and aircraft. The search was suspended on the late afternoon of June 12, and the Coast Guard declared Karen Leclair deceased.

In another case of people who missing in Lake Erie, investigators in Ohio in January identified the remains of three of the six people killed when a plane crashed into Lake Erie off Cleveland in December. But additional remains in that case have never been recovered.

The other three people on the plane were Fleming’s 46-year-old wife, Sue; their 14-year-old son, Andre; and Casey’s 19-year-old daughter, Megan, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Cleveland officials announced in January that they were was ending recovery efforts and said it was unlikely additional remains would be found because of conditions in Lake Erie.

The six were flying back to Columbus after attending a Cleveland Cavaliers game on Dec. 29.

Return to GoErie.com for updates.