New details released on man’s death

Published 1:05 pm Friday, May 30, 2025

Timothy Wade Freeman frequently walked around the Oconee River Greenway near the heart of Milledgeville’s downtown area.

His walk last week turned tragic when his body was eventually found by local and state authorities.

“Family said he often would take some walks by himself and be gone for several hours before he returned home,” according to Milledgeville Police Department Maj. Brandon Sellers, commander of the criminal investigation division. “So, him being gone a little while was not unusual.”

Freeman originally set out on a walk with one of his sisters at the park, Sellers told The Union-Recorder.

“It was almost 24 hours dead-on before we were actually notified by family,” Sellers said, noting that police were not informed about the missing man until about 4:30 p.m. May 22.

The investigation, led by Sellers along with several of his detectives,  revealed that Freeman had been seen by several people up until about 8 p.m. last Wednesday.

“So, based on our investigation, we do not think that he walked away from his sister and then fell into the water immediately,” Sellers said.

The siblings later went separate ways while walking.

“This was not an unusual occurrence,” Sellers said.

Once police received a call about Freeman, the first course of action by police was to establish drone flights, Sellers said.

The drones were operated by MPD Officer Darius Binion and Officer Dalton Skaggs.

“On Thursday evening, we concentrated on the area right around the boat ramp,” Sellers said. “The drones flew the river and most of the Greenway, but again, we were focusing on the Greenway south of the boat ramp.”

Police also called Baldwin County Fire Rescue Deputy Chief Bradley Towe, commander of the Baldwin County Public Safety Dive Team, to come to the scene and provide them with some guidance on the possibility of a water search.

“They have a hand-held piece of equipment called an Aquaeye that is capable of scanning a large area of water for a body,” Sellers said. “They hit on an area of interest very near the boat ramp.”

As darkness set in last Thursday, police and dive team members, joined by game wardens with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Law Enforcement Division, allowed a couple of divers to go into the water safely tethered to a rope put out from the boat ramp to a small nearby island.

“They checked out the area of interest but did not locate the body of the missing man,” Sellers said.

The search was suspended until 7 a.m. last Friday.

Police later put out some information on their social media page. And overnight, Sellers said they received information from people that Freeman had been seen walking around the Greenway.

“When we met up on Friday morning, my instructions to our two drone pilots was to fly starting from the northern part of the river and go south as far downstream as they could go,” Sellers said.

About 11:30 a.m., the drones detected Freeman’s body floating facedown in “pretty much the center of the river” about three-quarters of a mile south of the boat ramp, Sellers said.

Sellers said he requested Georgia Power Company officials to stop generating water about 4 a.m. last Friday. By the time the body was found, the river had gone down about two feet.

Baldwin County Deputy Coroner Foster Hurt pronounced the victim deceased at the scene.

An autopsy was performed at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Middle Georgia Crime Laboratory in Dry Branch to determine the cause of death.

Authorities believe Freeman’s death resulted from accidental drowning.

The drowning was the second to occur at the Oconee Greenway this year.