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Citrus Sheriff's Office Takes Lead In Missing Pilots Case

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TBO.com

Published: December 16, 2008

The Citrus County Sheriff's Office is taking the lead in the investigation into the disappearance of a small plane off the coast of Homosassa.

The agency said it will be responsible for releasing the identity of the remains found in the Gulf of Mexico last week.

An aircraft carrying Darien Peckham of Tampa and Zachary Schlitt of West Palm Beach crashed into the Gulf on Nov. 30.

The two men were on a flight from Tallahassee to Vandenberg Airport in Tampa when their small aircraft crashed about 20 miles southwest of Yankeetown in Levy County. The Coast Guard eventually suspended its search for the men, but a body was later found by a boater, a sheriff's office spokeswoman said.

Peckham, 35, is a nuclear medicine technologist from Harbour Island. Schlitt, 28, works for Boos Development Group.

The Citrus County Sheriff's Office is working with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, the medical examiner's office in Leesburg and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to identify the remains through DNA testing.

The DNA samples needed for positive identification have been delivered to the lab, Citrus County Sheriff's spokeswoman Gail Tierney said.

It could take weeks to get back the results, she said.

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