WHEELING – Two bodies found in the Ohio River last week were identified Thursday by police as Pittsburgh men who have been missing for several months.

Officials from the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police Major Crimes Unit confirmed the body pulled from the shoreline of Wheeling Island on March 19 was that of Paul Kochu, 22, who was last seen in December in Pittsburgh’s South Side. His death is not believed to be suspicious.

The second body, found March 20 near Steubenville, is that of Andre Gray, 34, who disappeared from his Lawrenceville home in October. Police said Thursday that case is being considered a homicide, as they believe Gray died as a result of a gunshot wound.

According to Pittsburgh police, Gray’s home was found to have been ransacked Oct. 25, and his dog was missing. No arrests have been made in that case, and no suspects have been identified.

Gray’s partially clothed body was spotted by a tugboat navigating the river between Steubenville and Brooke County one week ago near the Market Street Bridge. A recovery operation took nearly two hours due to the swift waters. Once the body was recovered, authorities reported the body had several tattoos and other distinguishing features that helped with identification.

As for Kochu, police have been searching for him since he disappeared after a night out in the South Side community on Dec. 16.

Video surveillance from that night indicated he was last seen walking in the area at about 2:45 a.m. Subsequent searches returned no results.

Meanwhile, the body identified as Kochu’s was found last week by a Wheeling Island man, who believed it to be a chunk of ice stuck on a dock. After ice melted and revealed the body, the man contacted Wheeling police, who recovered it from the water.

Initial identification was impossible, authorities said, as the body had no clothing and was bloated from the water. Wheeling Police Chief Shawn Schwertfeger said Thursday authorities had to rely on the results of forensic dental data, which lead to police identifying the body as Kochu.

As they waited for those results, Schwertfeger said officers began searching for reports of missing people in communities north of Wheeling.

“We did hear about the missing person from Pittsburgh, and we worked closely with the Pittsburgh bureau throughout,” he said.

Additionally, Schwertfeger said his team worked with the Coast Guard to determine whether Kochu’s body could have traveled from Pittsburgh to Wheeling – a distance of 84 miles that also includes five dams.

“We wondered how a body could travel 84 miles in the water,” he said. “We worked with the Coast Guard and learned a little about how the river functions when there is ice and with the locks and dams, and we found out it was probably feasible it could be Kochu.”

That suspicion came true Thursday when results from the medical examiner were returned.

“It was truly a matter of dental records,” Schwertfeger said.

The family of Kochu -an ICU nurse who worked at Allegheny General Hospital – temporarily relocated from Philadelphia to search for him. They released a statement Thursday, saying while they now have a better understanding of why Kochu loved Pittsburgh and are thankful for the help and support of the community, they are left with many questions.