The Nation - News from Oct. 22, 1986

The body of a young classical musician, missing since Oct. 10, was found floating in the ocean south of Dana Point Harbor by people on a private sportfishing boat, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman said. Gregory Donelle Smith, 25, had last been seen surf fishing at South Laguna, said Sheriff’s Lt. Russ Elsner. His fully clothed body was discovered at 1:19 p.m., Elsner said. Deputy coroners identified him at 9:30 p.m. Smith was the principal cellist with the UC Irvine chamber and symphony orchestras as he worked toward a degree in music from the university. “He was a young black graduate student from a very poor background who rose above all this and got a BA in music and was almost done with a master’s here,” Stephen Erdody, Smith’s cello professor, said.