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.

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 Patch.com. Rockdale 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.

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.”

He said, “I don’t believe this. I may be jumping the gun, but Warren was not; he was not suicidal. The fact that his car launched off that bridge, [there] were barricades there that had to be driven around. And we know how passionate he was about his job, his wife, and his children, so we just want answers. And whatever those answers are, we are going to get justice for him. He was the greatest person, one of the greatest men I ever met in my life, and this is painful.” Beard had served as assistant pastor of New Israelite Missionary Baptist Church located at 1625 W. 75th Place for the last six years. He also worked as a director at Preservation of Affordable Housing Communities.

Alston said that he spoke with him on the phone hours before Beard went missing on July 2. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. “He was jovial. He was happy, joking as usual,” he recalled before they would eventually end the conversation, the way they always did by telling each other, “I love you.” Alston told reporters that he wants Beard’s death investigated because he was with someone in Joliet the night his car plunged into the river. He said, “I would hope that the police would passionately pursue every single lead. He was with a person, he was last seen with a particular person, and we pray that police would definitely investigate him and really just give us some answers.”