FORT LAUDERDALE (CBS4) – Fort Lauderdale Police believe a missing man has been found – at the bottom of a South Florida canal.

Police divers pulled the man’s car — a white Mercedes Benz from 13-feet deep water near the boat ramps at the SE 15th Street boat ramps. Inside the car was the body of a 52-year-old white man who had been reported missing by his family on Tuesday to Hollywood Police, where he was last seen on Sunday.

His identity has not been released.

Police tell us the man made a distress call to 911 around 7 pm on Sunday night from an area near the boat ramps. Police searched on Sunday but didn’t find anything.

Hollywood Police checked the man’s cell phone records after he was reported missing and asked Fort Lauderdale Police to help them. Police used sonar to locate the vehicle.

Tonight his family’s worst fears have been realized.

“I can’t begin to imagine how it is around the holidays to receive some grave news like this,” said Fort Lauderdale Police Det. Travis Mandell.

Divers with the Fort Lauderdale Police department used floats to bring the car to the surface Friday evening and watched as it was pulled to land. Police do not believe foul play was involved in the man’s disappearance or death.

A crowd gathered to watch the recovery and share their sympathies.

“Someone lost a life and someone else if gonna be empty because of that,” said visitor Webster Crew.

Others who watched the efforts were filled with questions, like how did the man wind up in this canal and if he’d been able to call 911 a bit sooner could he have been saved.

“It’s eerie,” said Emily Ziegler, who lives nearby. “You just wonder what the cause was, if there was a cause. Was it an accident? We just don’t know.”