Authorities said on Monday that they suspect a corpse recovered in a reservoir in Northern California to be that of missing California student Kiely Rodni, who was last seen on August 6 at a sizable high school goodbye party in Truckee, northeast of Sacramento.
Although the corpse has not yet been recognized, Nevada County Sheriff Shannan Moon said at a news conference that “we suspect it is our missing individual.”
Earlier, a volunteer dive team claimed to have discovered a corpse while looking for Rodni, 16 years old.
During a live video on Monday, Doug Bishop of Adventures with Purpose said, “We have recovered Kiely Rodni’s car and have verified that there were remains inside.” He said that on Sunday at 10:40 a.m. local time, their team’s hunt for Rodni began near the Prosser Creek reservoir. By 11:15 a.m., after launching two sonar boats, they had located Rodni’s automobile 55 feet offshore.
They had claimed the vehicle was submerged in 14 feet of water in a Facebook post. The car’s license plate matched the one that the police had previously disclosed to assist in locating Rodni’s 2013 silver Honda CRV.
The license plate of Rodni’s car can be seen underwater in the video footage presented during the diving team’s live feed. Bishop said that when they were certain it was Rodni’s car, the team called the police and Rodni’s family.
The car’s ownership was verified by Moon at a news conference on Monday, and she said that it was found in a location that had been searched by investigators from the outset. The lake where Rodni’s automobile was discovered was thoroughly investigated, according to the authorities, who claimed they would need to “debrief” on why the car wasn’t discovered sooner. They had been looking for Rodni and her vehicle for over two weeks, and the volunteer dive team discovered it after a little more than 30 minutes of their own search. Divers have reportedly been present in “a number of bodies of water” during the course of the inquiry, and “several” teams have been looking for the automobile in the vicinity.
“The car was found yesterday night. We discovered a deceased person inside the car, “Lunar stated. “It may be our lost individual, we think. Although we haven’t been able to absolutely pinpoint it, it’s most likely where we are right now.”
According to authorities, there was just one corpse in the car, which has not yet been formally recognized. The automobile was discovered, pulled from the water, and is now being examined.
Police said that the autopsy and toxicology results are planned on Tuesday. The toxicological findings typically take four to six weeks to be received, according to them.
Police said on Sunday that they had deployed many detectives and investigators from several agencies to the investigation and that they had examined more than 1,800 tips in connection with Rodni’s abduction. Last Thursday, the Placer County Sheriff’s Office Dive Team searched underwater, but according to authorities, they were unable to find her or her vehicle at that time.
On August 15, Adventures with Purpose said that it will help Rodni. The diving team often accepts cold cases rather than open ones.
The volunteer organization claims it has assisted in the resolution of 23 unsolved missing person cases since 2019. It has more than 2.4 million YouTube followers.
They discovered James Amabile’s corpse and automobile earlier this year, 24 feet beneath the ocean. After telling a babysitter he would be late picking up his two girls in December 2003, Amabile vanished.