A pair of divers who volunteer their time to search underwater for missing people came across several dozen cars submerged in a Florida lake – and believe they could be connected to cold cases.
Doug Bishop and Ken Fleming’s latest research led them to a lake in Doral, Florida, near the Miami International Airport when they stumbled upon the vehicles.
“We’re here trying to solve missing persons cold cases,” Mr Fleming told local 7News. “When we discover a spot like this, with multiple vehicles, it pretty much indicates that a crime [has been committed], where they’re disposing the vehicles and hiding them from law enforcement.”
Video shows one of the divers inspecting a vehicle deep in the lake’s murky waters. The sleuths use sonar technology to search bodies of water across the state, aiming to crack cases. Bishop is with the United Search Corps, a non-profit that searches and advocates for the missing and families of the missing.
“We have a giant database of our own that we extract, where we go, ‘This person is missing with their vehicle in this general region of South Florida,’” said Mr Fleming, “and so, we have 40 that we’re targeting right now of folks that disappeared, anywhere from two or three months ago to 30, 40 years ago.”
Mr Fleming said that they believe the vehicles were dumped in this lake during various criminal activities.
“We have a case where someone drove from Pinellas County down to pick up their relatives at the airport, and then they disappeared,” said Mr Fleming, “so, in this spot, we’re near the airport, it’s a large body of water, it has easy access to get into, so we would target that as a potential foul play spot.”
Police in Doral and Miami-Dade County were alerted of their findings and both the divers and the authorities have been working together to remove all 32 vehicles. The divers said they would give any information they have in order to help solve any cold cases.
In a press briefing held this week, MDPD Spokesperson Alvaro Zabaleta said there’s a chance the vehicles could be linked to a crime like fraud or homicide. But as of Tuesday, there is no indication that they are connected to any murders.
He confirmed that the first vehicle they recovered was confirmed to be stolen.
“These are most likely the type of vehicles we’re going to find in this lake,” Mr Zabaleta said. “Vehicles that perhaps have been abandoned and they wanted to get rid of them, and they got rid of them here, or those that took them for a joy ride, they were stolen and then they were dumped inside the lake.”
Mr Zabaleta said the vehicles pulled from the lake were covered in vegetation growing on them and that many seemed very old, but assured that investigators could still run VINs to see if the cars are connected to any active cases.
“[The] majority of the vehicles in there are very old vehicles, just like the one we just saw, leading us to believe that these vehicles were dumped in this lake probably way before these warehouses were even here,” Mr Zabaleta said.
Meanwhile, Mr Bishop and Mr Fleming said they will remain at the scene to help police and continue their mission of searching for missing people.
The divers told 7News that they have found 60 submerged vehicles to date across the state of Florida that are possibly linked to crimes. They said they do it for the families.
“It’s about providing answers for families where they don’t have them,” said Mr Bishop.
“Departments, respectfully, have to justify their use of resources, and when a case goes cold, we have the ability to step in. We don’t have to justify our use of resources, and we can help eliminate the drag on personnel locally. We can do this, we specialise in it, we can do it on a high level and do so as volunteers.”
