Broward County teams launch diving operation to locate cars underwater with potential bodies inside
www.local10.com, Trent Kelly and Liane Morejon, May 24, 2022
DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. – Divers descended into a lake in Deerfield Beach Tuesday morning for a special operation designed to find and recover missing vehicles in Broward County waterways.
“There’s more water in Broward County than there is land, if you count the Everglades. Waterways are a pretty common place for vehicles or evidence or anything to go missing,” Alexander Beer of the Broward Sheriff’s Office dive rescue team said.
Divers from BSO and the Pembroke Pines Police Department will be spending the next three days searching through Sailboat Lake, where they believe at least eight cars are submerged with potential bodies inside.
“It’s a possibility. We know that for any number of reasons those vehicles are there. Whether it’s an environmental hazard to have them down there -- we certainly know they’re not supposed to be there, so they could be stolen, vehicles that were used in a crime,” Beer said.
The underwater cars were first discovered by Alison McManus, who started the nonprofit called “Guardians for the Missing” after her nephew vanished in 2006.
His body was found months later, submerged in his car.
“We try to locate as many cars as we can, hoping that we give some families closure. Our organization works usually on old cases for families that have missing family members in their vehicles,” McManus said.
On Tuesday, divers discovered a Bentley with no tags and no body inside.
It is believed as many as 13 cars are in the water and five of them were pulled from the lake on Tuesday.
These are the first five of many cars crews hope to find within the next three days.
Crews will return to Sailboat Lake on Wednesday starting at 9 a.m.