the ra ra riot page has already been updated with an r.i.p for their drummer and scores of their top friends have since changed their myspace photos to include photos of pike.
an updated story with only a brief mention of the band... FAIRHAVEN â?? After an extensive two-day search, a police dive team Sunday located what is believed to be the body of John Pike, the 23-year-old Hamilton man who disappeared after walking away from a Sconticut Neck house party early Saturday.
The body was found about 4:10 p.m. off Wilbur's Point in about 7 feet of water, 150 to 200 yards from where Mr. Pike's cellphone was found Saturday afternoon, according to Fire Chief Tim Francis.
The chief said the clothing on the body matches what Mr. Pike was wearing when he walked away from the house party.
"It's pretty clear it is him," Chief Francis told the media at a press conference outside the Fairhaven police station. The chief was substituting for Police Chief Gary F. Souza, who was coordinating police activities at Wilbur's Point.
Colleen Stone of Centerville, the victim's aunt, said her nephew is a 2006 magna cum laude graduate of Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications.
"He's the pride and joy of our family," she said.
She said he was a member of a band, based in New Jersey, and had played at The Living Room, a Providence night club, on Friday night.
She described her nephew as a "cautious" young man, who did not like the water.
She said he was supposed to attend a graduation party at her home at 5 p.m. on Saturday and was excited and looking forward to attending. She said the family became worried sometime later Saturday when he did not attend and did not call.
"He would have called us," she said.
Chief Francis said the body was spotted by one of the boats involved in the search.
Although there has been no determination of foul play, Chief Francis said police are treating it like a crime scene. He explained this is protocol when there is "an unwitnessed death."
He said authorities took video and photos at the scene and samples from the water around the body and the soil under it.
He said the District Attorney's Office and the medical examiner's office were contacted and that an autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death.
Chief Souza, in an interview earlier Sunday, said Mr. Pike's Blackberry cell phone was found by a Nelson Avenue resident about 3 p.m. Saturday in shallow water on the west side of Wilbur's Point.
He said it was low tide when the phone was found and also low tide when Mr. Pike was last seen.
The chief said Mr. Pike attended a house party at 19 Nakata Ave., early Saturday with a fellow member of the band who lives in Fairhaven.
No one was home at 19 Nakata Ave. Sunday afternoon when a reporter went to the house.
Mr. Pike's girlfriend received a text message from him, telling her he loved her, Chief Souza said. "There was nothing indicative that something was amiss at that point," he said.
Chief Souza said Sunday afternoon, before the body was found, that it was troubling to him that Mr. Pike had not used either his credit cards or his bank card and that the Hamilton man was unfamiliar with the area.
He said authorities searched from 4 to 8 p.m. on Saturday and from 7 a.m. until the body was found Sunday.
On Sunday, authorities conducted searches on the water and over land. Chief Souza said eight boats and 18 divers were involved in the marine search.
Divers from the Southeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, a consortium of police departments from 22 cities and towns, participated.
Search dogs from the Dartmouth and the Westport police departments, and the Bristol County Sheriff's Office searched wooded areas, fields and marshes. Also, several Rhode Island departments, who were training at the House of Correction in Dartmouth, joined the search as part of their training.
The total law enforcement complement involved in Sunday's search was about 50 officers and deputies, Chief Souza said.
