Body found near Erie Canal identified as missing Rome man

The body found near Lock 22 in Verona has been identified as Patrick J. Iannotti, a 50-year-old Rome man who vanished in late May. What began as a missing-person search now sits squarely in death-investigation territory, with investigators still working to determine how he died and whether anything criminal was involved.

New York State Police were called to Wood Creek Road near the Erie Canal around 2 p.m. on June 7 after a body was reported in the area. Troopers kept the scene under investigation for hours while Wood Creek Road near the lock was closed and the Onondaga County Medical Examiner’s Office worked toward confirming the identification.

By June 12, officials had confirmed that the body recovered near Lock 22 was Iannotti. Rome Police had been searching for him with help from New York State Police after he was last seen on Saturday, May 23, and the recovery marked the first hard answer in a case that had already pulled multiple agencies into the same file.

What remains unresolved is the part that matters most in a case like this: cause and manner of death. No suspect has been publicly identified, and available reporting does not lay out a criminal theory. Early in the probe, State Police said they believed the case was isolated and there was no threat to the public, a detail that narrows the immediate risk without closing off the wider investigation.

That is where the case now stands, moving from identification to reconstruction. Investigators still have to pin down the timeline between Iannotti’s last confirmed sighting on May 23 and the discovery near Lock 22 on June 7, then match the autopsy findings to the scene off Wood Creek Road. The name is known now. The next answers will come from the medical examiner, the physical evidence, and whatever the timeline at the Erie Canal lock can still give back.