Find out what's happening in Jolietwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Minutes before the tragedy, Beard’s car traveled along Rockdale’s Moen Aveue, the main thoroughfare through Rockdale’s business district. Then, Beard’s car turned on to Brandon Road and approached the four-way intersection with the traffic light at Route 6, according to Baikie.

“The pastor’s vehicle was hit on our FLOCK (license plate reader) cameras on July 2nd at 10:42 p.m. so we started searching the area for a vehicle,” Baikie explained at Tuesday night’s Rockdale Fire Station press conference.

“We advised the Chicago Police Department to go to the Brandon Road Lock and Dam because if there was any foul play, a lot of stolen cars end up over there. They went over there, talked to a bridgetender, bridgetender started reviewing tape. We knew that he was in town at 10:42 p.m. so they started reviewing video footage. At 10:47 p.m., on July 2nd, there’s video footage of a vehicle going off the Brandon Road Lock and Dam. It went under the bridge into the river.

“Obviously, that’s several days ago. It’s heavy traffic … a lot of barges, we estimate 25 to maybe 30 barges have gone through there, which disturbs everything, pushes everything, so it was hard locating the vehicle through the water, with how murky it is.”

Even though the Illinois Department of Transportation has placed two “ROAD CLOSED” barricades along Brandon Road near Route 6, the road closed sign only blocks the traffic lane for vehicles approaching from the west.

Vehicles can still travel south along Brandon Road toward the broken bridge to access the entrance to the Army Corps of Engineers’ parking lot, which is adjacent to the Brandon Road Locks and Dam.

Closer to the Brandon Road Bridge, are two more IDOT barricades with sandbags on them, however, a vehicle can maneuver around them based on where they were placed.

Baikie told Patch on Wednesday that none of the IDOT barricade signs were damaged by Beard’s vehicle.

“With this drive up there, his car wouldn’t be in the water because he veered off the road,” inquired Chenier A. Alston, senior pastor of New Israelite Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago, during Tuesday night’s press conference.

“He had to go around some barricades?”

“Correct,” Baikie responded.

For reasons unclear, the arm gates for the Brandon Road Bridge were not being kept in a lowered position when Beard plunged into the river.

Joliet Patch’s photographs taken on Tuesday showed the gates on both sides of the Brandon Road Bridge were pointed high into the air rather than in a lowered position to warn or prevent vehicular traffic from approaching.

However, Joliet Patch saw the gates were lowered on Wednesday, a day after Beard’s body was found underwater. A police source notified Patch on Tuesday at the scene that the gates were up.

Meanwhile, Baikie told Joliet Patch he can not recall anyone else in Rockdale over the years driving off the Brandon Road Bridge.

For the past five years, the bridge has constantly been under repairs. Sometimes it’s open for five or six months, only to be shut down for several more months of emergency repairs.

It’s now been closed for the past year and a half, with October projected by IDOT as the earliest it would be open, again.

Area motorists know to avoid Brandon Road in light of the bridge constantly being closed to traffic, but it’s possible that Reverend Beard, being unfamiliar with the area, and because it was dark outside, overlooked the road signs and barricades and did not realize he was approaching an open bridge, according to Baikie.

Click Here: Marcos Llorente Jersey Sale

Baikie said the video surveillance of the tragedy —captured by the Brandon Road Lock video cameras —showed Beard’s car drove off the bridge deck at a slow speed, maybe 15 to 20 mph, perhaps less, and the Chicago preacher’s car barely cleared the bridge.

The bridge, in its up position, is about 65 inches high. Beard’s car was 63 inches in height, according to Rockdale’s deputy police chief.

Below the bridge is a walkway with a metal railing. A small portion of the railing was bent because the preacher’s car hit it during its free fall into the river. His car immediately sank toward the bottom. The water below the bridge is about 15 feet deep, according to Baikie.

Over the course of the past week, probably due to the constant barge traffic, Beard’s car ended up about 120 yards west of the bridge.

During Tuesday night’s press conference, Baikie was asked about someone who apparently heard Beard’s car plunge into the Des Plaines River on the night of July 2.

Baikie told Joliet Patch on Wednesday that nobody approached his department at the time of that incident.

“So what I heard was that a fisherman was fishing south of the lock and dam, on Brandon Road, that night and heard a loud boom,” Baikie explained to reporters. “And by the time he walked to the bridge, he did not see anything, and he just heard something. There was nothing visible, and that was coming from the bridgetender today when we got there, he had said that.”

Baikie said Beard was the only person inside his car at the time of the tragedy, and on Tuesday night, Will County Coroner Laurie Summers revealed Beard was in the driver’s seat.

“We will not have complete answers for at least another eight to 10 weeks, and I want everyone to please be patient with us,” Summers announced. “The people that work in my office are very, very, good at their job and we want to be sure that we have the right answers and correct answers before we put anything else out there.”

Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.