‘Horrible accident’: Child, man found dead in Tennessee River
PERRY COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) — Authorities are investigating after the bodies of a father and son were recovered from the Tennessee River in Perry County Wednesday.
Members of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) were reportedly asked to respond to the area of Cypress Creek Road in Linden around 6:45 a.m. on Wednesday, March 27 after an employee of Rogers Group, a sand and gravel company, discovered the child in the river.
Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems said deputies initially found an unattended vehicle parked near where the body was found in the water.
“[We] found clues that indicated that they may have been fishing. We launched boats running sonar and discovered an image in the water, an additional image,” Weems explained. “We got the Perry County Rescue Squad’s boats out to drag the river, and at 12:25 p.m. today, we recovered an adult male, middle-aged male, from the same area.”
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The sheriff said neither the child nor the adult was wearing a life jacket, adding that they may have been in the water for 12 to 16 hours.
“The TBI is investigating all angles to rule out foul play. We don’t believe at this time that any foul play was there. We believe it was an accident, a horrible accident,” Weems stated.
According to Weems, the area is marked private property and considered a dangerous spot for people to fish.
“The area where I’m talking about is a place that’s known for people to go and frequent and fish off of the barges. It’s a gravel pit, so they dredge gravel from the river and they will stack those barges alongside to be loaded to carry gravel from one location to another,” he explained. “There are signs there that says ‘No trespassing’…’Employees only,’ but people ignore those signs. This is one of many deaths or drownings that we’ve seen in this area over the years.”
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The sheriff said this heartbreaking situation should serve as a warning for others.
“Especially in the Tennessee River, there’s, at times, there’s lots of current. Recently, there’s been lots of current around this location to where they were at,” he described. “There’s gravel stacked up, several feet high. That gravel can give away and off in the water you go. It’s just a really dangerous place to go and spend the day with your family.”
Weems thanked the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, the Perry County Rescue Squad, the TBI and the Decatur County Sheriff’s Office for assisting in the investigation.
Weems said the bodies, which have been taken to the Medical Examiner’s Office, are not related to any ongoing missing persons case in Tennessee.
The victims were later identified as father and son, 31-year-old Michael Ryan Tucker and 4-year-old Michael Allen Tucker.
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