2024-01-06 15:46:00
Donald L. Erwin had been missing since 2013 in the US state of Missouri. His car and his body were discovered a decade later on December 14, 2023 by a YouTuber who went looking for him.
One morning in late December 2013, Donald L. Erwin told his wife he was going to buy cigarettes. But the 59-year-old veteran never returned home.
For nearly a decade, Donald’s family, along with friends and area residents, scoured the hilly area near his home in Camdenton, Missouri, searching for clues. “I didn’t stop for nine years,” Donald’s sister, Yvonne Erwin-Bowen, said in an interview, noting that she travels to Kansas City at least twice a year to do the research. Mr. Erwin’s wife has since died.
Last year, Ms Erwin-Bowen, 62, began to lose hope. She gradually stopped looking for her brother.
Last month, Ms. Erwin-Bowen received a call from a friend: a scuba diver had found her brother’s car about five miles from her home, submerged in a pond.
The car, a 2002 Elantra, was recovered Dec. 16 from private property in southern Camden County, according to a news release from local authorities. Days later, detectives and cadaver dogs found human remains and an artificial hip that matched Mr. Erwin’s, authorities said.
The man behind this discovery is YouTuber James Hinkle, specialized in scuba diving and news stories.
“It startled me.”
The diver said in an interview that he became aware of the case about two years ago and began methodically searching bodies of water near Mr. Erwin’s home in a kayak. equipped with sonar, as well as using a drone.
On the afternoon of December 14, James Hinkle decided to search a pond on private property when he noticed a tire floating in the water. “It startled me,” he said. Using a drone, the YouTuber then observed a light, square-shaped object in the water. As he brought the drone closer, he realized that “it looked more and more like a car.”
For Donald L. Erwin’s sister, this sad discovery “is a new sorrow”, even if it allows “to put an end to this affair”.
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