Firefighters search river for body near bridge

Firefighters searched the Mississippi River Wednesday afternoon after a Cape Girardeau man said he witnessed another man step off the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge.

Ken Van Winkle told police that he saw a man standing on the ledge of the bridge. When he approached the man to try to stop him from jumping, Van Winkle said the man jumped.

A spokesman for the police department said Van Winkle was the only one who reported seeing the man on the bridge. Police confirmed that they received the call around 3 p.m. The Cape Girardeau Fire Department dispatched a rescue boat to search the river, but did not find a body. Police spokesman Jason Selzer said that no one has been reported missing.

Van Winkle, 25, said he was crossing the bridge returning home from a trip to Carbondale, Ill., when he saw the man. He said at first he thought the man might be a transportation department employee, but he noticed that he wasn't dressed in a uniform.

"It looked like he was yelling, talking to someone," Van Winkle said.

Van Winkle said he parked his truck on the bridge and approached the man who appeared to be angry and distraught. He said he was too far away to hear what the man was saying. He said the man did not appear to be talking on a cell phone, but could see no one else he could have been talking to.

"As I got out of my truck, it hit me that it looked like he was going to jump," Van Winkle said. "I yelled 'Hey!' He stopped talking, looked at me, and looked at the water. I took off running toward him, and a second after that he stepped off the bridge."

Van Winkle, a customer service representative for SBC in Cape Girardeau, said that he did not see the man hit the water. He said he immediately called 911 and connected with the Missouri State Highway Patrol Troop E headquarters in Poplar Bluff, Mo. The patrol advised him to call the local police.He said he then went to the Cape Girardeau police station to report what he saw, and returned with officers back to the bridge where they were joined by the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Illinois State Police, the Alexander County, Ill., Sheriff's Department and some undercover officers he said identified themselves to him as U.S. marshals.

Van Winkle said the undercover officers told him his description of the man who allegedly jumped from the bridge fit the description of a suspect the U.S. Marshals Service had been tracing since early Tuesday.

"They showed me his picture," Van Winkle said. "I wasn't 100 percent sure it was him, but I'm fairly sure it was him. The build was the same; the Adam's apple was the same. But I'm not 100 percent sure. I'm not going to say that."

Selzer said that investigators showed Van Winkle a photo of someone they were looking for "because they had a hunch." He said that no one was identified. Other Cape Girardeau police officialslater in the evening said they were unaware of any federal search.

The matter remains under investigation, Selzer said.

lredeffer@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160