The wife of country music singer Craig Strickland still wants answers after he went missing more than a week ago.
The 27-year-old Backroad Anthem frontman has been missing since Dec. 26 following a hunting trip in Kaw Lake in the middle of a storm. The body of Strickland's friend Chase Morland, 22, who accompanied him on the hunting trip, was found Monday in northern Oklahoma near Tulsa, Capt. Paul Timmons told ABC News.
"It's more painful for us to think he could be underwater," his wife Helen Strickland told ABC affiliate KHBS-TV in Fort Smith, Arkansas. "Still we want that closure in seeing him."
Search crews, who have been looking for the singer since Monday, couldn't locate him Saturday after searching Kaw Lake.
Helen Strickland thanked law enforcement Saturday for searching diligently for her husband.
"The canine units (and) the Kay County Sheriff's Department have been so wonderful to us. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol having gone above and beyond, especially going through this struggle, is the most comforting thing you can have," she said. "To see how much more work can be done in a specific area, it has given us a lot of rest because we feel like that'll give us a lot of hope they will find Craig soon."
She also thanked the community for keeping her family in their thoughts.
"Every time there's a post from some random person who I have never met before that says, 'Hey, I don't know you, I'm reading this, I'm praying for you, my heart goes out to you,' it's almost like I don't have to hurt on my own," Helen Strickland said.
Authorities said Friday they plan to search until Craig Strickland is found.
On Sunday, Helen Strickland continued to thank search and rescue crews on Instagram. She also shared a video of one of Craig Strickland's friends testing equipment, waders, he possibly wore when he went missing on the lake.
"Since Craig was most likely wearing his waders it would be helpful to know what actually happens when a duck hunter falls into the water," she wrote as the caption. "Craig's friend put on the same style waders Craig wore last Sunday and tested its buoyancy in the hotel pool. From this experiment we can conclude that Craig may have actually floated after the boat was capsized."
