{"id":23307,"date":"2024-07-11T09:27:08","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T13:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=23307"},"modified":"2024-07-11T09:27:08","modified_gmt":"2024-07-11T13:27:08","slug":"missing-chicago-pastor-found-dead-in-river-colleagues-insist-he-wasnt-suicidal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2024\/07\/missing-chicago-pastor-found-dead-in-river-colleagues-insist-he-wasnt-suicidal","title":{"rendered":"Missing Chicago Pastor Found Dead in River, Colleagues Insist He Wasn’t Suicidal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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New Israelite Missionary Baptist Church\/YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rev. Warren Beard, a beloved father of five, assistant pastor and Sunday school teacher at New Israelite Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago, Illinois, who had been missing since July 2, was found dead in the Des Plaines River. He was 53 years old. Authorities in Rockdale told ABC 7 that a week after he went missing, an alert from Chicago police led them to a license plate reader hit of his vehicle near a closed section of the Brandon Road Lock and Dam, which is 27 miles southwest of Chicago and two miles southwest of Joliet, where he was last seen alive after visiting friends.<\/p>\n

During a press conference, authorities said that video surveillance first discovered by the lock master for the Army Corps of Engineers shows Pastor Beard’s car plunging into the river very late on the night of July 2, according to\u00a0Patch.com<\/a>.\u00a0Rockdale fire officials said the pastor’s black 2023 Honda HR-V was seen traveling south on Brandon Road before driving into the water. It appears, they said, that the vehicle was driven around a barricade and through a 5.5-foot gap beneath the raised draw bridge, which had been closed for more than a year. “It was small enough, a small enough of a vehicle to make it under the bridge at the road in the bridge into the river,” Rockdale Police Department Chief Robert Bake said.<\/p>\n

When the vehicle was fished from the riverbed, the pastor’s body was alone in the driver’s seat. The Will County coroner positively identified the pastor but said it could be weeks before the cause of death is determined. The Illinois State Police and the Chicago Police Department are investigating the pastor’s death. New Israelite Missionary Baptist Church’s Senior Pastor Chenier A. Alston believes foul play may have been involved because Pastor Beard was not suicidal. Alston said at a press conference, “What I want answered is, ‘Who did this.\u201d<\/p>\n