‘They weren’t swimming’: Recent drownings add to deaths at Lake Tobesofkee

Nearly a week after a child drowned in Lake Tobesofkee, a second child who was pulled from the water died Saturday.

Kiheen Johnson Jeffrey, 8, was pronounced dead in the pediatric intensive care unit at The Medical Center about 3:30 a.m., Macon-Bibb County Coroner Leon Jones said. 

Jeffrey was in the water at the Michael Dewayne Jones Public Fishing Area along with 7-year-old Tristan Cornelius and a 10-year-old boy on the afternoon of May 23 when “they suddenly went under,” according to a news release from the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office. 

Cornelius was unresponsive when emergency responders pulled him from the water. He was pronounced dead at the scene. 

“They weren’t swimming. They were looking at the ducks and fell in the water,” Jones said. “The person that was supposed to have been watching them walked away or turned around.” 

The pair of drownings are not the first tragic losses of human life to occur on the lake, according to Jones and Telegraph archives.

In fact, the fishing area where the children were recovered is named in honor of Michael Dewayne Jones, a firefighter who died while saving three children from drowning in the lake on May 21, 2011. Jones was 24 years old. 

A year before Jones died, a pair of anglers perished after their boat sank. The bodies of Willie Buckles, 52, and his uncle, 62-year-old Frank Roquemore, were recovered near Claystone Park on Tuesday, March 10, 2010, roughly three days after the two took a boat out on the water to catch fish Saturday night. 

In August 2015, a 3-year-old boy drowned beneath the dock at the lakeside restaurant Fish N’ Pig, less than a half mile from the public fishing area where the two youngsters went under.

More recently, on June 26, 2022, a 2-year-old boy drowned on the eastern side of Claystone Beach near the sea wall. The boy was reported missing by family members who said he had drifted out of their sight. Minutes later, a park ranger pulled the boy from water about four feet deep. The child was taken to an Atlanta hospital and pronounced dead that afternoon.

Weeks before that, on July 10, 2022, a 31-year-old drowned while in an inner tube float that was being pulled by a boat. The body of Tyler Raye Renard Moss was pulled from the water near Claystone Park the next day. 

Jones said he believes everyone ought to wear a life jacket on the water.

“Everybody needs a life jacket,” Jones said. “If you’re going to be in the water you need to wear a life jacket.” 

Jones said the county put life jackets at Amerson River Park, a hot spot for drowning deaths, but the effort was short-lived because many people who borrowed them did not return them for others to use.