Man finds gun in Etowah River, may help crack case
BARTOW COUNTY, Ga. (FOX 5 Atlanta) - Evidence at the bottom of a river. A man diving the Etowah River in Bartow County found a gun that investigators have tied to an area crime.
Jeremy Sides says he spotted the gun about on the rocky bottom, about 16 feet below the surface.
"I happened to look up and it was just sitting right there. I freaked out!" said Sides.
Sides immediately turned it over to Bartow County Sheriff's deputies.
"When I found the gun, I got out and called the police because there's a reason somebody threw it in there. So I knew it needed to go to the proper hands because it could solve a crime," said Sides.
It didn't take long for Bartow County Sheriff's investigators to determine the gun had been stolen from a vehicle two years ago.
"We were able to trace the serial number and backtrack through our records and were able to determine it was reported stolen in 2017," said Sgt. Johnathan Rogers with the Bartow County Sheriff's Office.
Sgt. Rogers said more times than not when a gun is stolen it's not recovered, especially if it's at the bottom of a river. Sgt. Rogers said now that they have the gun, it may help them crack this 2-year-old case.
"Now that the gun has been recovered, we may be able to lend some credibility to information we have and we may be able to make an arrest," said Sgt. Rogers.
Sides said this find just makes him more curious about what's at the bottom of the Etowah. He wants to dive it again to see if he can find more answers to old crimes.
"Every bridge is going to have something like this, people think I'll throw it in the river never see it again. Now people like me are diving the river and it's not a good place to hide it anymore," said Sides.