Lewis said he received toxicology tests Tuesday that confirmed his suspicion, and he ruled the death an accident.

Bagnall, 34, of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, was found in a creek bed in a wooded area of the city. The Sharon native and graduate of Farrell Area High School had been dead 24 to 36 hours before his body was found, Lewis said.

Lewis gave this account:

Bagnall was with a friend Dec. 29 and was agitated when he left the friend's house because he thought the friend was trying to get him into trouble.

Bagnall called his girlfriend and said he was in a wooded area.

When the girlfriend did not hear from Bagnall again, she called in a missing person report. She knew the area where Bagnall said he was, which aided police in the search.

A deputy for the Franklin County Sheriff's Office saw Bagnall's car in a parking lot, then noticed the body in the water, reported The Columbus Dispatch.

Bagnall was a known cocaine user, said Lewis, a Hubbard native whose father, George, taught at Hickory High School in Hermitage.

Bagnall had a jacket but was not wearing it when he was found, a sign of a drug overdose, Lewis said. The user gets hot and discards clothing, even though it is cold outside.

"He wasn't appropriately dressed for the weather," Lewis said. "He had a jacket and he looked like he had taken it off."

An autopsy showed no signs of trauma or violence on the body, Lewis said.