The body of Porsha Griffin, 30, the woman who disappeared May 25 while tubing on Lake Greenwood, has been found.
According to a post on X (formerly Twitter), the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources posted, “Our officers have recovered the body of a missing woman at Lake Greenwood in Laurens County. The woman went missing after a tubing incident May 25.”
Laurens County Chief Deputy Coroner Patti Canupp said in a release Monday night that the body was positively identified as Porsha Griffin from Elgin.
An autopsy will be performed Tuesday morning.
Griffin and several friends had visited Skipper’s Landing and rented a boat for the day at Skipper’s on Lake Greenwood.
Griffin, a mother, veteran, registered nurse, student and daredevil, as described by her mother, went tubing with a group of friends at Lake Greenwood. The tube flipped and threw Griffin and her friend off. Only her friend resurfaced.
DNR, the Abbeville Dive Team and the Laurens County Sheriff’s Office have been out every day at 6 a.m., often staying until 8:30 p.m. or 9 p.m., searching for Porsha.
“She loved life. She was very soft spoken, with a heart of a lion,” her mother, Amicka Griffin, said about Porsha last week. “She is up there smiling,” noting that even her daughter’s death has brought the family together, although she wished it was for another reason.
Her life can be summed up in two words: She lived.
“There was nothing she wasn’t willing to do,” said her mother, who recalled her daughter stripping down an AR-15 rifle in front of her. She also took apart a television set and showed what was causing a problem with it.
After standard military training, Porsha became a communications specialist who worked overseas to make sure the various units were talking to each other. She wasn’t satisfied with that and started training as a nurse. She graduated and received her certification in December.
She was promoted to her current rank last month, her aunt, Tahsheba Coleman, said. Porsha earned four degrees.
Griffin was based in Columbia. Coleman her niece had been making plans to take her daughter, Naomi Griffin-Dinkins, to Disney World this summer.
Porsha was an “earth angel,” she never yelled at anyone, Coleman said. She never took sides on anything. She also organized family reunions, sometimes even when trouble was brewing, so relatives would be together.
As the search for the soldier continued over the weekend, support for the family was notable.
Relatives and friends have been traveling back and forth to keep company with Porsha’s mother and her aunt. Another aunt, Adrianne Livingston, praised the support.
People had delivered food, drinks, housing and money. The family had been staying in three houses. One of them belongs to one of the divers assisting in the search, she said. A look around the canopy set up for the family at Skipper’s Landing reveals evidence of people’s generosity: coolers packed with everything from bottled water, ice, food ranging from strawberries and blueberries and honey buns, to foil tins filled with barbecue, baked beans, cole slaw and macaroni and cheese.
“Everybody has been so supportive and offered unconditional love. It’s amazing how God works through people,” Livingston said. “I feel like Porsha’s spirit is reaching out through them.”