Ceres drowning victim’s family works to have search of New Melones resumed by nonprofits

The memorial service the grieving family of Richard “Rick” Matlock plans for the Ceres man is a little more than a week away. His body is still somewhere in the depths of New Melones Reservoir, but his loved ones hope his remains are recovered by then.

Matlock, 58, drowned in the Stanislaus River reservoir, which spans Tuolumne and Calaveras counties, on Aug. 18. A search was conducted for four days and involved sonar scanning systems, remotely operated underwater vehicles and rescue divers.

But on Tuesday, the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Boating Enforcement Division and Dive Team, which had been assisted by Merced and Tulare county sheriff’s offices, suspended the search.

“The extreme depths of Melones Reservoir makes rescue and recovery efforts highly strategic and very dangerous,” the Tuolumne department posted on its Facebook page. “While the active search has been suspended, Boating Enforcement Units will continue to monitor the search area as water and environmental changes are continuous.”

Sooner or later, that implies, Matlock’s body will surface and be recovered. But to help it through its grief, his family really wants recovery to be sooner, not later, said Matlock’s sister-in-law, Amy Beasley.

To that end, the family is exploring bringing outside help in to locate him. Beasley’s husband, Eric — a captain with the Selma Fire Department in Fresno County — has them reaching out to the nonprofit Drowning Accident Rescue Team (DART). The Sacramento-based group does rescue and recovery work from lakes and other waterways around Northern California.

The Matlocks — including Rick’s wife, Gina, and their four adult children — also have contacted Wisconsin-based nonprofit Bruce’s Legacy. The volunteer group’s website says it does “recovery operations for drowned victims to provide resolution for families.” It uses a boat-towed, torpedo-like side-scan sonar to “look” underwater.

Bruce’s Legacy has indicated it would come out to search, asking only that travel and other expenses, including lodging and meals, be covered, Beasley said.

She created a gofundme.com account for the Matlocks on Aug. 19, to help with funeral expenses, and said the family has decided that money raised there also would be used to aid with continued recovery efforts.

“Right now, just the waiting, feeling so helpless, they want to be able to lay him to rest,” Beasley said.

The afternoon he drowned, Matlock was boating with his son-in-law, she said. The younger man stopped the boat and jumped in to cool off. As he was getting back on the boat, his father-in-law jumped in.

But Matlock had asthma and was not a strong swimmer, and the water was deep and cold, Beasley said. His son-in-law could see him struggling and jumped in to help him, but was not able to pull him from the water, she said.

Matlock was not a drinker, Beasley said, so alcohol played no part in his drowning.

Her brother-in-law was a longtime employee of E Towing in Turlock, she said. The Hughson High grad had many friends from playing recreational baseball, Beasley said, and was an avid hunter.

“He was a good family guy,” she said. “He was a very giving person, and so many people called him ‘Dad.’”

This story was originally published August 23, 2018 at 2:47 PM.