A DECADES old mystery might be solved after a YouTuber discovered a car that could contain the human remains of two missing teens.
Jeremy Beau Sides and his team found a black Pontiac Grand Am during a dive missing in Sparta, Tennessee for Sides’ YouTube channel Exploring with Nug.
The remains have yet to be identified but they’re believed to be of Jeremy Bechtel, 17, and Erin Foster, 18, who vanished without a trace in 2000. The car, which belonged to Foster, was submerged in Calfkiller River.
The White County Sheriff said the license plate matched that of Foster’s missing Pontiac.
Sides had gone to the small town with the intent to find Foster’s car as his YouTube channel focuses on recovering lost items from bodies of water.
He and his team searched the river using side-scan sonar and found the car. After that, scuba divers were sent in to pull it out of the water.
“I’m lost for words,” Sides said. “I’m so glad I could find them. I’m so sad that that’s where they ended up. I can’t believe it’s been over 20 years that they’ve been sitting there waiting for someone to find them.”
The rusted Pontiac was mostly intact, Sides said. After the retrieval, the car and remains. were turned over to the police department.The families of the two teens have been notified as forensic investigators collect evidence from the Pontiac. The remains have been sent for genetic DNA testing.
“It was like losing him all over again,” said Jeremy’s father, Ron Bechtel to the New York Times.
Bechtel said the family had “a thin big of hope” that Jeremy was still alive.
However, knowing that his son might have been found has given Bechtel a bit of closure.
“I can bury my son,” he said. “I’ve prayed that if he’s not on this Earth, that he’s with Jesus and with mama, and there’s no doubt they’ve all seen him by now and know what’s happened.
Erin’s father Cecil Foster said the whole situation seems “like almost a dream,” adding that he and his son had gone fishing on the river many times over the years.
“They were packed away and we just lived basically like she was dead and tried to make it through the day,” he told Inside Edition.
Foster said that Erin’s family had struggled with her disappearance to the point that photos of her had to be put away as they were too painful to look at.
The teens’ families have prepared separate funerals but a joint memorial service is being planned. A GoFundMe page was created to help cover the costs.
A HAUNTING STORY
According to Sides, the story has haunted the small town for years.
“It was a very small town, two teenagers go missing and no one knows where they went. Everybody knew these kids, they went to school with them, you know,” he said.
“Half the police officers went to school with these guys, they were friends with them. It was a very great feeling to bring so much closure and answers to so many people at once.”
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