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Georgia’s notorious Lake Lanier has claimed yet another life, as a 23-year-old man drowned over the weekend.
According to The Independent, Gavrie Alexander Whitlock fell into the lake on Saturday night (Sept. 2) after running down a dock, and he failed to resurface.
Hall County Fire Rescue recovered Whitlock’s body that same evening, with FOX 5 Atlanta reporting that his corpse was found in 17-foot-deep water.
In the wake of this passing, Whitlock’s coworker Barbara Chamberlain told the outlet that she remembered him as a “very funny” man who was “the life of the party.”
Harrowingly, this tragedy is the eighth recorded death at Lake Lanier so far this year. It also comes about a month after a 24-year-old named Thomas Milner died after jumping into the lake.
As The Shade Room previously reported, officials believe Milner died via electrocution, and his mother told 11Alive, “Our deck was less than three years old and was outfitted with electricity by a licensed electrician.”
She added that her son “loved the lake,” acknowledging, “Almost every week, he would spend his day off riding with the jet ski, swimming, or just snoozing on the dock to some music.”
Beneath TSR’s Instagram post on the latest death, people chimed in and spoke about how suspicious they were of Lake Lanier. Notably, the lake has reportedly claimed upwards of 200 lives since 1994.
In the comment section, Tami Roman straightforwardly proclaimed, “There’s nothing inside of me that would ever go to this lake.”
Another Roomie going by @6lasian.bre speculated, “He didn’t slip them spirits dragged em.”
As for @meechiedefranco, she stated, “It happens too often to not believe the myth. I’m never going there.”
People continued the conversation on Twitter, where other users speculated about the haunting of Lake Lanier — which swallowed the historic Black community of Oscarville, along with farms and graveyards, during its formation.
