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Missouri Doctor Found Dead with Gunshot Wound in Lake Left Behind a Pregnant Fiancée
"I have never cried and prayed so much as the last two weeks. It's just been wrenching," Robert Forsyth, the doctor's 76-year-old father, reportedly said.
An ER doctor who was found dead with a gunshot wound in a lake near the Ozarks was expecting a child with his fiancée before the discovery.
Dr. John Forsyth’s fiancée, a nurse at the same Missouri hospital in which Forsyth worked, is currently eight months pregnant with the couple’s first child, according to Fox News Digital, citing an unnamed source.
The couple had recently gotten engaged, which was not revealed to Forsyth’s family until after his mysterious disappearance on May 21, Fox News reported.
RELATED: Kayaker Finds Missing Missouri ER Doctor’s Body with Gunshot Wound in Arkansas Lake
"I have never cried and prayed so much as the last two weeks. It's just been wrenching," Robert Forsyth, the doctor's 76-year-old father, told Fox News. "They were planning their wedding," he added of the couple.
Forsyth’s fiancée, whose name has not been undisclosed, was the last person to communicate with him, texting him around 7 a.m. on the Sunday he went missing, according to CBS News.
“I told him this is the happiest I’d seen him in a long time,” Richard Forsyth, Forsyth’s brother, told the Associated Press. “His divorce was final May 11, and I think that gave him energy for the future.”
John Forsyth was the father of eight children, soon to be nine, and had recently divorced the mother of seven of them, according to the AP.
The ER doctor was found with a gunshot wound on the banks of Beaver Lake in Arkansas on May 30 by a kayaker, KTVE reported. Authorities did not release any information as to whether the gunshot wound was self-inflicted or caused by someone else.
Richard Forsyth told The AP that he and his family were not convinced of the theory that their loved one took his own life.
“I don’t believe it,” he said. “John would never do that. I won’t accept that possibility.”
Investigators initiated a nine-mile search party around the area where Forsyth’s unlocked vehicle was found with his wallet, laptop and cellphones.
“It doesn’t seem like a person who left with a plan,” Richard Forsyth told the AP during the time Forsyth was considered missing. “Right now, we really don’t have any breaks in the case. I’m confused, and I’m worried. And I don’t like this one bit.”
Richard Forsyth told Fox News Digital that Forsyth was previously kidnapped and released in February of 2022.
"It was cold. He was zip-tied. He was made to feel very unsafe and taken on a car ride with some people to a bridge and was threatened," Richard told the outlet.
Richard did not learn about the kidnapping until after his brother’s death, but believes it was related to the two brothers’ cryptocurrency business, Onfo, Fox News reported.
The investigation into Forsyth’s death is ongoing.
