A $10 million federal lawsuit has been filed by the son of a woman who drowned in the back seat of a Meigs County Sheriff’s Office patrol car Feb. 14 after a deputy, who also drowned, inadvertently drove the vehicle into the Tennessee River.
The suit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Chattanooga seeks nominal, punitive, compensatory and presumed damages in the drowning death of Tabitha Marie Smith, the woman in the back of Meigs County Deputy Robert John “R.J.” Leonard Jr.’s patrol car the night both lost their lives, according to federal court documents. The suit filed by Smith’s adult son, Nathan Alexander Smith, names Meigs County government and Leonard as defendants.
Smith, 35, originally of Chicago, was the mother of four, including Nathan Smith and three minor siblings, according to her obituary and court documents. During a Feb. 15 news conference before Smith was named as the person in custody in the patrol car, District Attorney Russell Johnson said the woman found in the back seat of the patrol car was covered in mud. Leonard, who left behind a wife and five children, had recently moved to Meigs County from New York, officials at the news conference said.
According to the suit, Leonard, who had worked for the department for about two months at the time of the drowning, answered a disturbance call on the state Highway 60 bridge where he took Smith into custody, handcuffed and secured her in the back of his patrol car and left for the Meigs County Jail in Decatur. At some point before entering the river, Leonard sent a text to his wife that said, “arrest.” Around the same time, Leonard also made a radio call to a county dispatcher and was believed to have said, “water.”
Leonard’s patrol car had run off the end of Blythe Ferry Road — once a ferry landing now used as a boat ramp — into the Tennessee River, the suit states. The location has a reputation as an area where other people have driven into the river in the past.