NEW ORLEANS — The New Orleans Police Department and firefighters recovered a body that was found floating in the lagoon at Audubon Park on Sunday.
On Monday afternoon, the Orleans Parish Coroner's Office identified the body was identified as 25-year-old Michael Nwokorie.
According to friend Sadie Ragusa, Nwokorie was an Air Force veteran, a student at LSU and a human resources specialist.
“He wanted to be a doctor and that is what he was doing," said Ragusa, who met Nwokorie at band camp during her freshman year at East Ascension High School in Gonzalez, La. "He joined the military, I mean this guy. What he wanted he got it. He was a go-getter.”
NOPD, NOFD, and the New Orleans coroner were on the scene Sunday morning near the jogging trail at Perrier Street and Exposition Boulevard.
“Currently, this incident is being investigated as an Unclassified Death. If there are any changes to this ongoing investigation, we or the coroner's office will let you know,” NOPD PIO James Roberson told WWL Louisiana in an email.
In the meantime, Ragusa will remember the good times and what Nwokorie meant to her band family.
“You spend so much time together in the music," she said. "You’re learning, you're competing with one another, you’re part of that and it's just something that you hold so close and dear to your heart.”
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