Deputy makes first arrest then disappears — now vehicle found in water, TN cops say

UPDATE: The missing deputy’s body was found in the Tennessee river the evening of Feb. 15, Meigs County deputies said, according to WTVC.

The original story is below.

A deputy was on his way to a Tennessee jail after making his first arrest when he and the arrestee disappeared, authorities said.

Now, officials said his vehicle was found submerged in a river, but he wasn’t in it.

Russell Johnson, the district attorney general, announced the car’s discovery at a Feb. 15 news conference broadcast by WTVC.

Johnson said R.J. Leonard, a deputy with the Meigs County Sheriff’s Office, responded to a disturbance on a bridge the evening of Feb. 14.

He had only been on the job for two months and made his first arrest that night, officials said.

He was heading back to the jail when he texted his wife about the arrest, and she responded to him. But the text never went through to his phone, Johnson said. Cell phone and radio service in the area aren’t good, he added.

Shortly after the arrest, Leonard put out a radio call that was hard to make out.

“We think he was saying water,” Johnson said.

Then he went offline. He didn’t respond to the next status check with dispatch and hasn’t been seen since.

Law enforcement agencies began searching for the deputy and the woman he arrested, until rescuers found a vehicle in the river near an old ferry landing.

Deputies used a remote-operated device and confirmed the vehicle was the deputy’s, Johnson announced in an afternoon update broadcast by WTVC. It was found upside down in the river.

Rescuers found the body believed to be the woman Leonard arrested in the backseat covered in mud, but the deputy wasn’t found in the car, Johnson said. The driver’s side window had been rolled down.

Authorities discovered the vehicle at the same location where a woman had gone into the water about a month ago and survived, Johnson said.

Leonard is originally from New York and moved with his wife and kids to the area, where he has extended family. After Leonard graduated from the academy, he was working the night shift, according to Meigs County Sheriff Jackie Melton.

“He was doing a pretty good job, he was doing a real good job,” Melton said. “It’s just hard… the department is just like a family. I hope things are just different, I pray it is.”

The operation is still a search, the sheriff said.

Meigs County is in southern Tennessee, about 50 miles northeast of Chattanooga.

This story was originally published February 15, 2024 at 2:20 PM with the headline "Deputy makes first arrest then disappears — now vehicle found in water, TN cops say."