New details in fatal Muscatine County river crash

MONTPELIER, Iowa (KWQC) - In an arrest affidavit obtained by TV 6 News, police say that 36-year-old Joshua Peters of Davenport was operating the vehicle under the influence of methamphetamine at the time of the accident.

According to a press release from the Muscatine County Sheriff, the entire incident started around 11 p.m. on Thursday. The report says a woman called from the Fairport Rec Area, between Montpelier and Muscatine, to report a “disturbance”. Deputies responded but found nothing at the time.

“We was putting our camper up, and all of a sudden, we heard someone arguing and fighting across the road where this tent is,” said Claudean Critten, a woman who says she was at Fairpoint Rec Area at the time of the disturbance.

Critten says the group of two women and two men were having trouble setting up the tent, and their arguments carried on late into the night.

“They kept saying, Josh, Josh, stop it, no, no. And I don’t know. I couldn’t really see,” said Critten. “But then I could hear his car. You know how like you kind of jerking around. ERR ERR ERR. And they kept saying, stop it. Just stop it. And then all of a sudden, it squealed off.”

According to police, just after midnight, a woman called from the campground to report a missing adult man.

Then, just before 12:30 a.m., the report says police are called to a Montpelier home on Tombstone Trail, several miles down the road.

“I woke up to this, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,” said Lyle Sindt, who had been woken up a short time earlier by the squeal of tires down the road. “And I got up and there’s a guy beating on my window on my truck right here. And I asked him what he’s doing.”

The man, later identified by deputies as Joshua Peters, told Lyle and his brother Danny that he had been in a wreck and needed a ride, before wandering to neighbor’s homes.

The brothers say he seemed intoxicated and had his hands in his pants. Worried he may have a weapon, Danny went into the house and grabbed his firearm as Peters came back.

“Don’t try anything. I say, I’ll blow your arm off,” said Danny Sindt. “And he says: ‘Sir, okay, I won’t try nothing.’”

Danny held Peters at gunpoint while Lyle called 911.

“He told us his name, finally,” said Lyle. “Then that he was from Davenport. And then so we waited for the cops to get here.”

“He’s all just completely sopping wet like he’d just come out of the river you know,” said Danny. “I’m sure that’s what happened. I know he come out the river because you don’t get wet like that just getting rained on.”

The Sindts say police stayed in the area until the early morning hours, at which point the police report says they found a car submerged in the Mississippi river with a man dead inside, slightly south of the Clarks Ferry Recreation Area, and just down the hill from the Sindts’ home.

The Muscatine County Medical Examiner has confirmed the deceased man is 71-year-old William Talbot of Davenport.

Arrest affidavits say that as the vehicle sank into the Mississippi, Peters escaped, leaving Talbot inside.

It also indicates that the two women left at the campground were Talbot’s wife and daughter.

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