Casket on the river
Jim Bailey has seen some strange objects floating down the Tennessee River outside his Brown's Ferry Landing dock, but today was a first.
A casket - that first looked to possibly be a canoe - appeared on the horizon. Then the unusual cargo was blown right to the seawall by the Bailey home.
After police, TWRA, fire and neighbor Senator Todd Gardenhire checked it out, the casket found a home nearby - at a Haunted House, of course.
Mr. Bailey related, "My wife and I recently had our second dose of COVID, and we had finally gotten out to do a little yard work by the dock. That's when I first saw it.
"I said, 'Honey, what do you think it is?' "
"She believed it might be a canoe.
"Then the wind shifted it straight over to us, and I went down and saw that it was a casket."
Mr. Bailey said the back end of the casket was missing and the lid had fallen down inside. He said some of the felt was still intact on the lid on the "modern-looking" burial chamber.
He surmised, "I have no idea where it came from, but I expect at one time there was a body inside."
Mr. Bailey said, "By now, I figured I had better let somebody know what I had found."
He called police and Officer Brian Smith responded. The officer contacted a TWRA office who opined that the casket now belonged to the owner of the property where it had alighted.
Mr. Bailey said the officer "knew that I couldn't get it out of the water by myself so he called the Fire Department and they sent three men out."
At the same time, the Haunted House owner at Brown's Ferry Road and I-24 was notified. He was elated and hurriedYouTube to the scene with his pickup truck. He and the three Fire Department personnel were able to get it in his truck.
Neighbor Gardenhire, in the meantime, had arrived to find out what all the fuss was about.
Mr. Bailey said Officer Smith, as he left, commented wryly, "If you find a body, let me know."
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Meanwhile, a casket was found floating down the Cumberland River in Wilson County, Tn., also on Monday. See https://www.wkrn.com/news/wilson-co-deputies-reel-in-casket-from-river/
Senator Todd Gardenhire got a look at his neighbor's casket just before the Haunted House guy trucked it away