By John Schwing

WESTPORT — The body of a 62-year-old man, whose SUV was abandoned on a local stretch of Interstate 95 last December, was found floating in a pond Monday at a Greens Farms Road office complex.

Errol Whyte, of Stamford, has been the subject of a missing-person investigation since Dec. 30 when his Ford Explorer was found abandoned — his keys, cellphones and empty wallet inside — between I-95’s southbound exits 18 and 17 in Westport.

His body was found after police received a report about 11:30 a.m. Monday of a body in a retention pond at the office complex at 55-57 Greens Farms Road, police spokesman Lt. Eric Woods said.

The body appeared to have been in the water for “a significant amount of time,” Woods said. Police responding to the scene retrieved the body from water that appeared to be about waist deep, he said.

An autopsy is expected to take place Tuesday.

Stamford police have been leading the missing-person investigation since Whyte failed to return home from visiting his son in Bridgeport on Dec. 29. His red SUV was found the next day alongside the highway.

The vehicle did not break down or run out of gas, a Stamford police spokesman said at the time, and it also was reported that I-95’s traffic cameras provided no evidence for the investigation. The search for Whyte was expanded to the tri-state by Stamford police in January.

With the discovery of Whyte’s body, Westport’s Police Detective Bureau is launching an investigation into the circumstances leading to his death, police announced Monday afternoon.