An NYPD inspector's frantic search for his missing wife ended in tragedy Wednesday when he found her body inside her Mercedes, submerged in the family swimming pool, police said.
Wayne Bax searched for hours for his wife, Marianne, after he and his son returned to their Rockland County home about midnight Tuesday and discovered she was gone, police and family said.
Bax, a Deputy Inspector at the NYPD's Bronx Borough Headquarters, and his son Christopher, a rookie cop with the Clarkstown Police Department, drove around West Nyack, looking for her car.
Friends and relatives helped in the search, but Marianne, 52, who suffered from multiple sclerosis, was nowhere to be found.
After Bax reported to the Clarkstown Police around 11 a.m. Wednesday that his wife was missing, cops checked local hospitals and tried to zero-in on her cell phone - without success.
Around 1 p.m. Wednesday, Wayne Bax went into the backyard of his home and noticed jagged pieces of ice protruding from the swimming pool and a gaping hole in the pool's cover, police and Bax's brother said.
The Mercedes was totally submerged, with its transmission in reverse.
Christopher Bax tried in vain to remove his mother from inside the submerged vehicle, but could not, Clarkstown Police Sgt. Harry Baumann said.
A local rescue team succeeded in extricating her from the vehicle a short time later. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Marianne Bax had apparently backed the Mercedes across the home's side lawn, covering roughly 100 feet and smashing through a chain-link fence before crashing into the pool, Baumann said.
Wayne Bax's brother, Dominick Bax, 68, of the Bronx, said his "distraught" brother and nephew never noticed slight tire tracks on the lawn during their search.
The Clarkstown Police Department is investigating Marianne's death as an accident. Cops found no evidence of alcohol in the car.
Dominick Bax wondered last night whether his sister-in-law's illness may have played a role in her tragic death.
"Because of her MS, her legs are wobbly, especially at the end of the day," he said. "But I do not know if that was a factor in what happened with the car or whether it was a mechanical failure."
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