Martin County - Tuesday January 3, 2023: The Martin County Sheriff's Office has launched a death investigation after a woman was found dead in the deep end of a pool in Palm City.
Shortly after 7 a.m. Monday, January 2, MCS Deputies were called to 1345 SW Estates Place by the homeowner, 41 year-old Darin Whelan, who said he found his girlfriend, 31-year-old Aja Morgan, dead in the deep end of his pool.
Martin County Fire and Rescue was already on the scene and paramedics had already pulled the woman out of the pool, checked her vital signs, and pronounced her dead.
According to the Martin County Sheriff's Filed Case Report, Whelan said he and Morgan had been partying on a boat with two friends on New Year's Day, Sunday January 1st. He said his girlfriend had become "very intoxicated" and he had never seen her drink that heavily before.
Whelan and Morgan and their two friends, 39-year-old Adam Jenny and 30-year-old Gina Tomlinson, returned to Whelan's home Sunday night where Morgan "attempted to sober up", but the partying continued.
Jenny and Tomlinson went to bed about 2 a.m. Monday, said Whelan. He and his girlfriend "continued to have a night in the pool." Whelan said he thinks he passed out about 3:30 a.m. near the staircase in the pool. When he awoke around 6:40 a.m. he looked around for his girlfriend but did not see her. He tried to call her on his cell phone but no answer. He looked for her car and found it still in the drive-way. He checked the the upstairs bedroom but she wasn't there.
He then made his way into the backyard again to see if she was in the guest house and that "is when he discovered her at the bottom of the deep end of the swimming pool," according to the report which goes on to state that he did not attempt to pull her our since "she was not moving at all and appeared to be blue."
The Martin County Sheriff's Criminal Investigation and Forensics Units are investigating. NO arrests have been made.