Recently, the cold case unit where I live publicized one of the cases they were working on, looking for help. They have a podcast called SOMEBODY KNOWS SOMETHING, and somebody knew something. As the buzz intensified, I got sucked in. It's right where I live, after all. The podcast was easy to find, and while the case was progressing - they had new evidence - I was following along in real time.
The police department "opened up" the investigation - it was forty years old - after exhausting dozens of leads and dead ends. They shared information never before shared. Details previously unknown. Listening to them investigate the case, step by step, was fascinating. A woman disappeared. Poof. Vanished into the ether. She disappeared with her car, so the original conclusion was that she chose to disappear. Got in her car and left. But where did she go? There was no trace of her. No trace of her car. Once she'd been reported missing, the police searched her apartment and found the title to her car. - a paper trail they could follow. Someone would have to buy the care eventually. Or sell it. Or wreck it. For any of those options, they'd need the title, and police were in possession. Nothing ever pinged.
The inclination is to blame a spouse or lover. She had a boyfriend, the man who reported her missing (three days after she disappeared). Didn't anyone miss her prior to three days? They looked at him, suspecting him of foul play, but there was no evidence to support that theory. The case went cold, unsolved, but never closed.
When the cold case unit took another look, they checked all the options again. Interestingly, a serial killer had rented the missing person's apartment before she did. Was it possible he'd returned? Then there was the possibility that the woman, who'd been at a bar immediately prior to her disappearance, might have been harassed/abducted/disappeared by a biker gang who had been hanging around in the parking lot that night. They had lots of suspects, and had to consider whether her disappearance had been orchestrated. Unfortunately, they were short on witnesses who could pinpoint the woman's last moves.
Forty years later, a witness came forward who said they'd seen this woman leave in her car. So what happened to her if she left of her own volition?
The cold case team started looking into details. Forty year old topography maps. Weather reports. Climate reports. Since she'd been seen driving home, the police looked at what routes she might have taken and a new theory began to form. One of those routes runs beside a river. During their historical investigations, they found the river had been at record flood stage when she disappeared. The weather had also been colder than normal, which might have led to slick conditions and possible patchy ice. If she'd been drinking at the bar, she might have been impaired. The road ran through a wooded area where deer (or other animals) might have darted in front of her. No street lights back then. Could she have lost control and ended up in the river?
For the first time in forty years, the police called in a dive team, Chaos Divers, to check the river. They used sonar to check the river for targets - submerged vehicles and the like. They found three targets on a chilly March day and went in to check. After two strikes, the diver came aboard to warm up. They were already making plans to check other nearby bodies of water the next day when the diver made the decision to go back down to eliminate the third target. Checking off boxes. He came up with a license plate from a vehicle submerged upside down in the water. It was the license plate from the missing woman's car.
The podcast highlighted the entire investigation from following leads to recovering the car, which all happened in a surprisingly short period of time. I decided to adapt the case (read "artistic license") for my upcoming book, and as I'm now in the editing phase, I stopped to watch the video Chaos Divers did of the investigation. Now I had visuals to accompany the story. While my book isn't primarily about the cold case, the story does feature prominently.
The recovery was fascinating to follow, as evidenced by the multiple media outlets visible in the video the divers produced. Even after the recovery, the police investigation continued. Was it an accident? Suicide? Foul play? The podcast followed the case beyond the recovery of the missing woman into the remainder of the investigation. They were able to determine the emergency brake had been engaged. The woman had tried to stop the car in a hurry. There was no other visible damage to the car to indicate a collision of any sort. Whether the river carried her in (it was a smaller vehicle, low to the ground) or she encountered something on the road that sent her into the river is a question they might never be able to answer. The parking brake was enough to rule out foul play, but we'll probably never know exactly what happened that night. The end result is they brought the missing woman home and gave her family closure after forty-plus years.
Torn from the headlines? Absolutely. Inspiration is where you find it.
Shout out to Chaos Divers, who do this sort of work on a regular basis, relying chiefly on donations. Noble work. They've solved dozens of cold cases related to water disappearances. Check them out. If you are so inclined, donate to their GoFundMe efforts, or other fundraising efforts.
The book? I'm looking at a July release date.
