Be careful when you come across a car resting on the bottom of a lake, you just might be caught off guard when you look inside it!
Read this news release:
Authorities in Oklahoma say two vehicles containing six bodies recovered
from a lake may solve cold cases from the late 1950s and 1970.
ELK CITY, Okla. — A sheriff says the remains of six people, not five, were
in two cars found at the bottom of a western Oklahoma lake decades after
they went missing.
Custer County Sheriff Bruce Peoples told Oklahoma City television station
KFOR that each of the cars pulled out of Foss Lake on Tuesday contained the
remains of three people. Authorities initially said one car contained the
remains of three people and the other had the remains of two.
Divers training with sonar equipment found the cars accidentally last week.
Authorities say a Chevy Camaro appears to be one that went missing in 1970
with three Sayre teenagers. They say an older Chevrolet appears to be one
that went missing with some Canute residents in the late 1950s or early ’60s.
"It’s just been under water for 40 years. It’s a mucky mess," Sheriff
Peoples told KWEY radio.
In addition to the Custer County Sheriff’s Department, the Oklahoma Highway
Patrol, the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation and the state Medical Examiner’s
Office were on the scene Tuesday.
Authorities discovered the cars by accident. Betsy Randolph, spokeswoman for
the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, said diving teams were at Foss Lake conducting
training with sonar when they came upon the vehicles last week.
"So they went back and did a scheduled dive today and were going to recover
the cars. When they pulled the cars out of the water, the first one that
came out, they found bones in the car," she said.
When they pulled the second car out, another set of bones was discovered.
The divers then went back in the water and searched around and found a
skull, she said.
The remains were turned over to the Medical Examiner’s Office.
"We thought it was just going to be stolen vehicles, and that’s not what
it turned out to be, obviously," Randolph said.
She said the Highway Patrol is hoping the discovery will offer some relief
to families who may have gone decades wondering where a missing loved one was.
"We’re hoping these individuals, that this is going to bring some sort of
closure to some families out there who have been waiting to hear about
missing people," she said. "If that’s the case, then we’re thrilled we
were able to bring some sort of closure to those families." |