A 70-year-old retired physician who was accused of cheating in the Los Angeles Marathon was found dead in a river, police and relatives said.
The body of Frank Meza — who was disqualified Monday after video showed he left the course in March during his record-setting time of 2:53:10 — was found in shallow water in the Los Angeles River by police at about 10 a.m. Thursday, KABC reports. Meza had insisted he did not cheat.
A cause of death had not yet been determined, but officials told the station that drowning is not suspected.
Meza’s wife, Tina, told The Daily Beast he had been rocked by allegations that he cheated in March and during several previous marathons by cutting courses. He had repeatedly denied the accusations, telling the Los Angeles Times he left the Los Angeles Marathon to look for a bathroom and used a sidewalk for some time during his search before returning to the course.
“Running was very important to my husband,” Tina Meza told the website. “He had been running marathons for the last 30 or 40 years. He was very fast, quite fast, and now unfortunately he won’t run marathons anymore.”
Meza, of South Pasadena, told his wife early Thursday that he was headed out for a run, she said.
“I said, ‘It will be good for you,’ and he said, ‘I’ll see you later,’” Tina Meza recalled.
But Meza never returned and his body was found later that morning in the river near the city’s Cypress Park section.
“That’s all we know,” she said.
A police spokeswoman confirmed to The Post that officers responded to a report of a dead body early Thursday at the Los Angeles River near Riverside Drive and Figueroa Street. The victim, who was not immediately identified, was pronounced dead at the scene, Officer Norma Eisenman said.
Meza’s body was found on the river bed beneath Figueroa Street, according to a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office. An autopsy is pending and Meza’s cause of death had not yet been determined, the spokeswoman said.
Meza was found dead after a business analyst in Ohio named Derek Murphy who runs a website called MarathonInvestigation.com published an exhaustive post in late May that purported to show photographic evidence that the retired doctor cut the Los Angeles Marathon course months earlier.
The post noted that Meza had also been disqualified for anomalous times in previous marathons, including the California International Marathon in 2014 and 2016 before he was banned for life by race officials.
“I am deeply saddened to learn of Frank Meza’s death,” Murphy said in a statement Friday. “My heart goes out to his family and friends, and I wish for everyone to be respectful and to keep his loved ones in mind. There will be a time for comment and a broader discussion, but at this point, I feel that we should all allow those close to Frank the space to grieve.”