In late December, Jeremy Sides climbed into a raft on the Calfkiller River in Tennessee, started the engine, and pulled the cover off his side-scan sonar. As he cruised up and down the river, the imaging system showed a depth of about 13 feet and the occasional school of fish.
But Sides wasn’t on the river to fish. He’s a YouTuber from Georgia who searches rivers and lakes with sonar equipment and films his finds, sharing them on his Exploring with Nug YouTube channel. This time, he was looking for a 1988 Pontiac Grand Am he suspected might be in the river. The car was last seen in April of 2000 when two teenagers, Erin Foster and Jeremy Bechtel, drove away in Foster’s vehicle and were never seen again. The case went cold until Sides learned about it from a missing persons database and decided to conduct his own investigation.
The sonar eventually showed the image Sides had been looking for — a car beneath his raft. He changed into his scuba gear, dove toward the submerged car and brushed thick algae from the back license plate. It was indeed the lost Pontiac. Law enforcement later recovered the car and found human remains inside, which have been submitted for testing and identification.
