Horror discovery in rusting barnacle-covered car hauled from water sparks major breakthrough in 15-year-old cold case
Specialist divers Dan Pritchard and his scuba partner Bill McIntosh made the horrific discovery when they unearthed the sunken Chrysler at a Long Island beach.
2
A horrific discovery was made inside a rusting barnacle-covered car
Credit: CBS News
2
Robert Long went missing in 2019
Credit: Facebook
The dive team believe they found the
Long was on his way to the local liquor store when he was reported missing.
Over a decade later, specialists believe they have found the remains of his body inside a submerged Chrysler PT Cruiser at Cedar Beach.
Monday's discovery launched an urgent investigation by
Suffolk
Couny Police who have sent the remains for an autopsy to determine the cause of death.
The remains have yet to be identified.
Detective Lt. Kevin Beyrer said on Tuesday afternoon: 'There is a missing person who we suspect this driver to be.
'We made a courtesy notification to the family, but we have not definitively made any sort of identification.'
The pair of divers reportedly used kayaks equipped with special side-scan sonar devices in the search.
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Sonar systems are used to create an image of large areas of the sea floor.
After several hours, they found what appeared to be human bones inside the rusting vehicle.
Missing woman's remains tragically wash up on UK beach 140 miles away from where she vanished 8 months ago
They promptly called the police who performed their own search and pulled the vehicle out of the water with a crane.
A force spokesman told the
this morning
with the Marine Bureau divers going into the water at low tide.
'They examined the interior of the vehicle and tried to recover whatever they could from within the vehicle.'
The shock discovery comes just weeks after a suspected human bone was found washed up in Rhode Island, near Taylor Swift's beachside mansion.
The gruesome find came after c
The remains were transferred to the Rhode Island Medical Examiner's Office, said the Westerly Police Department Detective Division.
Taylor Day, a Westerly resident, said she saw three police cars and a medical examiner "pulling in behind me."
Day said, 'It was probably a couple football fields away from Taylor Swift's house and the Ocean House.
"I would never expect anything like that — especially not in Watch Hill.'
Read more on the Irish Sun
She added, 'It kind of alarmed me, and it was just something very out of the ordinary for Westerly."
Police do not suspect foul play, but Day said she would "definitely disagree with that."
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