Missing Tennessee deputy found dead in river after patrol car pulled out with suspect’s body inside
The bodies of a missing Tennessee deputy and a woman he had apprehended were discovered in a submerged patrol car Thursday night, almost one day after he apparently warned dispatchers of “water” while driving the woman to the county jail, authorities said.
The remains of Robert “RJ” Leonard, a rookie deputy with the Meigs County Sheriff’s Office, and the unidentified woman were recovered from the Tennessee River and being transported to the Knoxville Regional Medical Examiner’s Office, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office said.
Authorities had earlier extracted his patrol car from the river, on the border of Hamilton and Meigs counties.
It was found upside down, with the driver-side window rolled down and the trunk blown out from the high water pressure, Meigs County Sheriff’s officials said at a news conference, according to ABC News.
Inside the back seat was a body, believed to be that of the unidentified woman he was taking into custody.
“There was a whole lot of mud,” Meigs County District Attorney Russell Johnson recounted.
“There is a body in the backseat of the car covered by a lot of mud. A lot of mud on the front seat, but [there’s] no body in the front seat.”
With a strong current and murky water, it took search parties several more hours to find Leonard’s body lying nearby.
He had not been heard from since around 10 p.m. Wednesday, after he responded to a call about a man and a woman fighting on a bridge and took the woman into custody, officials said.
He radioed dispatchers, saying he was driving to the county jail with the suspect.
But soon, dispatchers lost all communication with the deputy, who did not respond to a status check.
One of his last known communications was to his wife, whom he texted “arrest.”
She wrote back either “that’s good,” or “that’s great,” Johnson said.
“We know that his phone did not evidently receive that text,” he noted.
At around the same time, officials said, Leonard made a final call to dispatch in which he apparently said “water,” a word authorities had to use “special techniques” to decipher.
“Dispatch couldn’t tell what he was saying,” Johnson said. “We think he was saying ‘water.’”
Deputies then used satellite tracking of his vehicle and a location-sharing app he had installed on his phone to locate Leonard’s patrol car on Blythe Ferry Road near the Tennessee River.
Authorities now believe Leonard was texting and talking on the radio while driving down the dangerous road he was not familiar with, as a native of New York.
“They are not well-lit,” Johnson said of streets in the area. “They are not well marked. They are narrow. If he’s not paying attention, he could hit that water pretty quick.
“We’re operating under the theory it was an accident — he missed his turn, he wasn’t familiar and he was doing other things that may have caused him to go into the water.”
“There’s some skid marks and some scratch marks too,” he noted. “So there’s some indication that he was on the brakes, at least trying to stop.”
Leonard had graduated from the training academy in December, officials said.
“Deputy Leonard had only been here for a couple of months, but he had become a part of our family,” Chief Deputy Brian Malone said at the news conference.
“It’s a hard time for us here,” he said. “It’s something that we don’t ever deal with here in Meigs County.”
Sheriff Jackie Melton also noted that Leonard was working the overnight shift, and was doing a “real good job.”
Meanwhile, his wife, Christa, wrote on social media: “Our lives are forever changed. Please keep praying. Pray harder than you ever have before.”
“My heart is breaking for my kids and I am just an absolute wreck,” she wrote on Facebook.
“I will start reaching out when I can pull it together. For now, all I can do is cry.
“We love you forever RJ. Seventeen years isn’t long enough with you.”
