LITTLETON -- Karl Besas texted his brother last week to say he intended to go boating with friends the next day. It was the last message Jonathan Besas would get from his younger brother.
On Wednesday afternoon, a helicopter pilot with the N.C. Highway Patrol spotted Karl Besas' body, more than four days after the Raleigh man disappeared while swimming at night with friends at Lake Gaston, near Littleton.
Karl Besas, 24, was described by his brother as a motorcycle racing enthusiast who was "always happy, always smiling." He was a graduate of Enloe High School in Raleigh and UNC-Chapel Hill, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in biology. He had been working at Fink's Jewelers since his senior year in college.
It was his father, Jacinto, a retired ship engine mechanic with the U.S. Navy, who cultivated his youngest son's love for boating, Jonathan Besas said.
Medicine also is a family tradition in the Besas family. Their mother, Helen, works as a nurse at Duke Hospital, and Jonathan attends the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in Suwanee, Ga.
"He was actually planning on moving down here with me to attend nursing school," Jonathan Besas said Thursday.
Halifax Sheriff's Capt. Jay Burch said the body of Karl Besas surfaced about 60 yards from where he first went missing.
Divers with the Littleton Fire Department, and the Norfolk and Smith Mountain Lake, Va., police departments had been searching for Besas since just after midnight Saturday.
He was one of five people aboard a 24-foot Chaparral boat Saturday, the sheriff's office reported. Besas' friends reported him missing when he went under and did not surface.
Besas' family and friends held an around-the-clock vigil on the lake's shore while dive teams from around the Roanoke Valley and Virginia searched an area that covered about 30 miles and air patrols searched hundreds of miles, Burch reported.
News researcher Peggy Neal contributed to this report.
