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Thursday, October 29, 2026Oct 29

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Search continues for missing man on Tennessee River

Recovery teams continue their search today for a Soddy-Daisy man presumed drowned in the Tennessee River over the weekend.

Richard Wilkey, 42, vanished Saturday after a commercial tugboat collided with the fishing boat he was using with two other men.

Teams are currently doing surface searches but plan to do sonar searches later today, said Chief Bill Tittle, head of Hamilton County Emergency Management Services.

The search is difficult because crews are working in a huge span of murky water at least 35 feet deep in some spots, he said.

Another man, Tim Stidle, 45, of Elizabethton, Tenn., was found dead at the collision site on Saturday.