{"id":8383,"date":"2026-01-27T07:47:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T07:47:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=8383"},"modified":"2026-01-27T07:47:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T07:47:38","slug":"princeton-man-found-dead-after-illinois-river-swim-sheriff-says-shawlocal-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=8383","title":{"rendered":"Princeton man found dead after Illinois River swim, sheriff says &#8211; shawlocal.com"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"robot-feature-image\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.shawlocal.com\/resizer\/akuUvhOU7nFZm2ocgfyYI_ELe_Y%3D\/1200x630\/filters%3Aformat%28jpg%29%3Aquality%2870%29\/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com\/shawmedia\/RKCR3R2K5VAKZJM3AOTI3IF774.jpg?w=860&#038;ssl=1\" \/><br \/><span>A Princeton man was found deceased on Sunday after entering the Illinois River, the Putnam County Sheriff\u2019s Office said in a Monday news release.  <\/span><br \/>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shawlocal.com\/tags\/princeton\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.shawlocal.com\/tags\/princeton\/\">Princeton<\/a> man was found dead in the Illinois River on Sunday, the Putnam County Sheriff\u2019s Office said in a news release Monday. Witnesses said he went under the water while swimming on Saturday and did not resurface.<br \/>According to the release, witnesses said Joshua A. Ellis, 48, on Saturday, entered the river on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shawlocal.com\/tags\/marshall-county\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.shawlocal.com\/tags\/marshall-county\/\">Marshall County<\/a> side of the river and was swimming toward the Putnam County side when he went under the water and did not come back up. <br \/>According to the release, the Marshall County Sheriff\u2019s Office notified the Putnam County Sheriff\u2019s Office at 7:03 p.m.<br \/>The Peoria Fire Department Dive Team found Ellis on Sunday, Oct. 5. He was pronounced dead at the scene by the Putnam County Death Investigator, Robert Cofoid, according to the release.<br \/>The Putnam County Sheriff\u2019s Office was assisted by the Illinois Department of Conservation, the Marshall County Sheriff\u2019s Office, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shawlocal.com\/tags\/henry\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.shawlocal.com\/tags\/henry\/\">Henry<\/a> Fire Department, the Lacon Sparland Fire Department, the Peoria Fire Department Dive Team, the Henry Police and the Putnam County Death Investigator.<br \/>Maribeth M. Wilson has been a reporter with Shaw Media for two years, one of those as news editor at the Morris Herald-News. She became a part of the NewsTribune staff in 2023. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/rss\/articles\/CBMiuAFBVV95cUxPY1YzQkNYSEVZOHNxSnpDWHA1M0lNTXZvU3VmOTkwVjVhWUdqNm5YTE9TNUJMT2NaTWpOVVg3VV9SNUZUTUNuY1piQlFNZG5vSmVIUWdpanJUcEw4SUR2dmlzaFRVZHdJTEpiU1cxMUtobGdwOElWRGZPOXJhdUxoQ1Q3bHk1MGtkcGE3V0ZJX0d2TGNoMlFJTUJ4S1F5ME92REY4SXZXWVY1RFpaVHV4RWNteHNZQjFQ?oc=5\">source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Princeton man was found deceased on Sunday after entering the Illinois River, the Putnam County Sheriff\u2019s Office said in a Monday news release. A Princeton man was found dead in the Illinois River on Sunday, the Putnam County Sheriff\u2019s Office said in a news release Monday. Witnesses said he went under the water while swimming on Saturday and did<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}