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Body found on roof of Clearwater retirement facility

By JOSE CARDENAS
Published August 29, 2006

CLEARWATER — A body was found Tuesday on the roof of a seven-floor retirement facility near the nursing home from which 90-year-old Alzheimer’s patient Leo Wood disappeared two weeks ago, police say.

Investigators were working the discovery at the Highland Terrace Retirement Center as a potential crime scene.

Clearwater police Sgt. Gregory Stewart could not say whether the body belonged to Wood, who walked out of the Highland Pines Nursing Home on Aug. 15.

Nor could Stewart say immediately how the person found on the roof died or how long the body had been there.

Highland Pines is at 1111 S Highland Ave. Highland Terrace is about a block away at 1520 Jeffords St.

Wood, a Canadian World War II veteran who was in the invasion at Normandy, was last seen walking east on Budleigh Street around 10:30 the night he disappeared. He was wearing a white-collared shirt and gray sweatpants.

Since then, dozens of police officers, volunteers and Wood’s family had searched every wooded area and pond — including the city’s large new retention ponds on Court Street — in the immediate area.

Searchers used cavader-sniffing dogs, Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office helicopters, sonar and divers, and the overall search area ranged from East Bay Drive on the south to Sunset Point Road on the north.

Wood was wearing an ankle monitor that was supposed to beep loudly whenever he left the building. The focus of the Police Department’s efforts has been to find Wood, not determine what happened with the beeper. Highland Pines administrators have said they are investigating what happened with the monitor.

Wood has the mental capacity of a 4-year-old, and his family didn’t believe he could walk more than a mile from the facility.

He was medicated and liked the nurses at Highland Pines, according to his family, but he could do no more than shuffle. He could barely talk, couldn’t read, write or swallow liquids.

Wood had been an elder in the Community of Christ Church, but around three years ago leaving his Oldsmar home and would walk down the road for a mile and a half.

[Last modified August 29, 2006, 13:18:07]