KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Along the banks of the Tennessee River, clues are washing up on shore.
On Saturday, the Knox County Sheriff’s Office discovered the body of a woman washed up on a dock.
In March, a body in a bag was found near the shoreline of Douglas Lake in Jefferson County.
No one has been arrested in either case, but the recent floods may have played a role in finding the bodies.
"When the water gets up, bodies wash out," said Dr. Bill Bass with the UT Body Farm who worked with the medical examiners office before retiring. "The rivers are a very good place to locate people who have been discarded. It doesn’t surprise me at all that you would find a couple in the Knoxville area."
The Knox County Sheriff’s Office is still working to identify the body found on Saturday. Acting Chief of Detectives Brad Hall said the body was likely in the water for several weeks before it was found by two men fishing in West Knox County.
Dr. Bass said it is not uncommon for floods to wash out new evidence, often leading to the discovery of missing people or others no one knew had vanished.
"You have someone who is killed and thrown in the water and they get hung up on a stick or a root or something like that. As the water increases in a flood, they get washed out," said Dr. Bass. "I wish we knew how many bodies were out there just waiting for us to find. There are bodies out there."
The TVA said parts of rivers in East Tennessee rose several feet during the recent floods. The water level on Norris Lake went up 30 feet with all the rain.
Folks that work to keep the river clean said anything on land when the water level rose was brought back into the river when it went down.
"When it was flooded, it came past the trees. So you can imagine any litter that was thrown down off the highway, that was going to get pulled down off the river," said Kathleen Gibi with Keep the TN River Beautiful. "Eighty percent of the litter in the river comes from litter that was thrown down on land."
Anyone with any information about either unidentified body is asked to contact the Knox County Sheriff's Office and the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office.