By Avis Thomas-Lester and Brian Mooar
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 2, 1999; Page B01

A canoeist found a body on the Potomac River shore in southern Fairfax County last night, and police were investigating whether it is that of Joyce Chiang, a 28-year-old Immigration and Naturalization Service lawyer who disappeared Jan. 9 when a girlfriend dropped her off near Dupont Circle.

The decomposed body was found about 6 p.m. in the 8000 block of East Boulevard Drive in the Arcturus neighborhood, Fairfax County police said. It was partially clothed and lying face down on a rocky stretch of the shore.

Fairfax County police spokesman Ed O'Carroll said that because decomposition was advanced, the body was listed as "of unknown sex and unknown cause of death." An autopsy was scheduled for today.

But a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation said: "It's an unidentified body; it appears to be the body of a female wearing clothing similar to the clothing described as Joyce Chiang's clothing. It's the same clothing described in the flier with the exception of the jacket, which was found in Anacostia Park with her ID."

A couple walking in Anacostia Park found Chiang's government identification card Jan. 10, and on Jan. 21, her green suede jacket, keys, a Safeway shopper's card and a Blockbuster video card were found in a secluded, grassy area near the north gate of the Anacostia Naval Station just south of Anacostia Park.

Those locations near the Anacostia River are more than eight miles upstream from where the body was found. Since Chiang's disappearance, two searches of the river have been mounted. One turned up the body of a man, but nothing was found to help the investigation of Chiang's case.

Chiang grew up in suburban Chicago, graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Mass., in 1992 and received her law degree from Georgetown University in 1995. She then began work as a lawyer at the INS.

Since she vanished, Chiang's friends and family have posted fliers around town and held vigils in Dupont Circle. The case was featured on "America's Most Wanted," and a $40,000 reward was offered.

Jan. 9 had been a productive and ordinary Saturday for Chiang. She stopped by her office to finish some work before heading to the mall at Pentagon City. At 4 p.m., she met a friend, Patty First, a Department of Justice lawyer, for coffee in the Dupont Circle area. Later, she went with another friend to see the movie "A Civil Action," had dinner and then was dropped off at Connecticut Avenue and R Street about 8:20 p.m.

She had planned to go to the Starbucks at that corner, get a cup of hot tea, and head to the apartment five blocks away that she shared with her 26-year-old brother, Roger.

She needed to be home by 9 p.m. to call a friend in San Francisco to wish him well on an acting performance, but she never made it.