Coroner ID's Body Found in Corte Madera Creek as Missing Novato Man

The Marin County Sheriff's Coroner's Division has identified a body pulled last night from Corte Madera Creek as Novato resident Anthony Donelson.

Donelson, a 23-year-old who grew up in Fairfax and San Anselmo, allegedly fled a traffic stop in Kentfield on Dec. 24 by running from police and jumping into the creek.

His body was pulled from the creek a few hundred yards from where the traffic stop occurred. 

Marin County Sheriff's Lt. Doug Pittman said deputies and Ross Police responded to a report of a body being seen in the creek at around 5:45 p.m. Monday just south of Stadium Ave., which ends at a pedestrian overpass of the creek leading to the campus of Kent Middle School.

The body was originally reported to the Fairfax Police Department, where authorities notified sheriff's deputies. 

Deputies and police located the body beneath the surface of the water and called in the sheriff’s dive team and Kentfield Fire crews.

Pittman said the dive team placed the body bag below the surface of the water, lifted it out of the water using a ladder from a Kentfield Fire truck and immediately transported it to the coroner’s office.

Ross Police said Donelson had been stopped in December on suspicion of drunken driving on Sir Francis Drake Blvd. at College Ave. but immediately fled down College before jumping a fence and leaping into the creek.

Police said they followed Donelson as he swam away until they reached a point they couldn’t follow him. In the days after Donelson went missing, authorities conducted multiple searches of the area, using sonar equipment to comb the waters. 

The search continued all the way out through Greenbrae and into the bay, Ross Police Chief Erik Masterson said.

Family members had also offered a $5,000 reward for Donelson, who graduated from Sir Francis Drake High School.