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Dive team searching Mississippi River for missing Louisa County man

Michael Bishop Jr. was last heard from on Dec. 18 by his daughter. He was reported missing the next day.

GRANDVIEW, Iowa — The Louisa County Sherriff's Office is searching for a man last seen on Dec. 18. 

48-year-old Michael Steven Bishop, Jr., of Grandview, Iowa, was last heard from by his daughter around 6:58 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 18. He was allegedly driving his silver 2021 Chevrolet Silverado Trail Boss Edition pickup at the time. He reported missing just before 11:00 a.m. the next day.

The Sherriff's Office says it doesn't believe alcohol or drugs were involved, and that multiple pinging attempts to Bishop's OnStar GPS in his vehicle lead them to believe that his car was somewhere in the Mississippi River. 

"We have done extensive forensic technology investigations such as pinging the phone [and] pinging OnStar on his truck," Louisa County Sherriff Investigator Kary Conger said. "All the locations are generating a location on the Mississippi River. That's why we are searching all boat ramps. We are specifically focusing on the Toolesboro Boat Ramp. The family has advised us that is where he generally likes to hang out when he would go for drives."

On Tuesday, a private dive and search team, Chaos Divers, arrived in Grandview to help search for Bishop. Because the river was frozen over, they had to spend a day breaking through the ice.

Update Live On Searching For Mike Bishop "lil beaver" On the Iced Over Mississippi River

**Update on Iowa Search** This live will be a quick briefing on our searching for Mike in Iowa. We arrived around 2:30am on Tuesday morning. We knew the river was frozen, so we spent Tuesday at the river getting an idea of the flow of the river, the location, and plans to break up the ice. Today we were able to get some amazing people to come down and use heavy equipment to break up the ice and that allowed us to get into the water and continue breaking it up and clear the ramp area. This community has been one of the most heartwarming communities. Everyone just wants to help. We’ve had people sanding the ramp for us, people donating their time and heavy equipment, restaurants offering free meals for anyone involved, and our accommodations were donated. This community of givers and doers fits in perfectly with our Chaos Family support system!

Posted by Chaos Divers on Wednesday, December 28, 2022

The Louisa County Sherriff's Office asks anyone with information about Bishop's whereabouts to contact them at (319)-523-4371.

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