A sad scene unfolded on the edges of the Clear Fork banks on the Trinity River Wednesday night, as first responders recovered the body of a 66-year-old Fort Worth man.
Investigators from the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office (TCMEO) have identified the man as Mark Edward Knowles, whose lifeless body was found after a call was made to police around 6:53 p.m. about a man seen in distress in the water.
Witnesses reported seeing Knowles near the intersection of Watercourse Drive and Arborlawn Drive, before calls to 911 prompted response from an emergency crew to the river’s edge, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Despite efforts to revive the man with CPR from an emergency team, Knowles was pronounced dead at the scene just before 7:20 p.m.
As of the time of publication, the circumstances or events surrounding why Knowles was in the river remain unclear, yet police are actively investigating the incident.
To aid in the investigation, TCMEO will conduct an autopsy to determine the man’s cause of death, hopefully shedding light on the mystery that surrounds this tragic event.
This isn’t the first death associated with the Trinity River within the past few years.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, a body recovered in September of last year marked the third reported drowning in the Trinity River within the year at that time.
In April of 2023, two men were also tragically swept away by the current while enjoying a picnic with their family near the Elm Fork section of the river.
In February of 2024, a search was held for a young girl missing near the river that sadly concluded with the discovery of her body. Audrii Cunningham was found with the help of multiple search teams in the Trinity River near Livingston, Texas, per DX.
During a press conference at the Texas Department of Public Safety in response to the search in February, Polk County Sheriff Byron Lyons confirmed that Cunningham’s body was located after river operators manually lowered the water levels.
