AUBURN

Police recovered a body Saturday presumed to be that of a Bath native missing since April 5. A positive identification could come as soon as today.

Family members of Daniel Doherty, 46, said police contacted them Saturday afternoon to advise them a body had been recovered below the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge near North River Road in Auburn.

Lewiston police Lt. David St. Pierre said people in a canoe on the Androscoggin River made the discovery and called police at 1:44 p.m. The body was recovered at 3 p.m. and taken to the office of the state medical examiner for positive identification, he said.

“It’s not certain the body is that of Daniel Doherty,” St. Pierre said Saturday.

The body “is the same gender and general description” as Doherty, St. Pierre said, and police called the family as a courtesy.

The Times Record first reported the discovery online Saturday.

Michelle Cox, a friend and co-worker of Doherty’s, said the recovery was in the area of the bridge where Doherty’s vehicle was recovered after being found parked erratically near midnight April 5.

“That’s the area where he went into,” Cox said. “We had looked there, with a dog. We kept looking. Every time I did a search, I stopped there.”

At the time of his disappearance, Doherty — a Morse High School graduate and manager of a Lewiston apartment building — was said to be despondent over a contentious divorce.

Most of his associates agree he was experiencing what his mother called “emotional issues.”

The body was spotted floating in the river near an area known as Boxer Island, near North River Road in Auburn, police said.

Auburn Deputy Police Chief Jason Moen said the body was sent Saturday to the Maine Medical Examiner’s Office for identification.

In the month since Doherty disappeared, his family anguished over what may have happened to him.

Cox, 50, of South Paris, had said Doherty was to meet her at a coffee shop in Auburn on April 5, the night of his disappearance.

Later that night, Doherty’s vehicle — a blue 1998 Mercury Mountaineer SUV — was parked half outside a breakdown lane on a bridge that spans Lewiston and Auburn, its emergency lights flashing.

Cox said she spoke with him by cellphone at 11:15 p.m. April 5.

“We had a long call that ended at 11:24 with me asking him where he was,” Cox said. “And I felt like he was saying goodbye.”

Cox said Doherty finished the conversation saying, “I’ve been poisoned.”

Whether that meant chemically poisoned or tainted by a divorce proceeding that he felt had jeopardized his relationship with his daughter wasn’t clear. It was likely the last time anyone spoke to him.

Auburn and Lewiston police, the Androscoggin County Sheriff ’s Office and game wardens began searching.

Within days, tracking dogs along the Androscoggin River found his jacket very near shore.

That led police to tell the family they were all but certain they would be searching for a body.

Doherty grew up in Bath and, according to his brother, was a captain of the Morse High School football team in the 1980s. Doherty also owned and managed a Lewiston apartment building, and was employed at Great Falls Marketing Co., before he disappeared. bmentzinger@timesrecord.com