Detectives with the Camden County Sheriff’s Office say they are confident they’ve recovered the remains of a Camdenton, Missouri, man who had been missing since 2013 from a private pond this weekend.
The recovery of the victim’s body comes over a week after his car was found in the same pond.
Donald L. Erwin, 59, had last been seen alive on Dec. 29, 2013, when he went to the store to buy cigarettes, according to KCTV-TV.
YouTube user James Hinkle had flown a drone over private property and found a submerged car in the pond earlier this month. After getting permission to check the water with a kayak, Mr. Hinkle confirmed the location of the 2002 Hyundai Elantra before letting police know on Dec. 16, the sheriff’s office said in an announcement Monday.
“It was my second to last stop. … I was getting ready to pack things up and flew over, saw that there was a tire in the water. I could see from the drone that it wasn’t attached to any vehicle. And then I just pan the drone over and I seen something else in the water,” Mr. Hinkle told KRCG-TV.
On Saturday, detectives went to the pond and dredged up human remains along with an artificial hip, consistent with one owned by Mr. Erwin, who had a prosthetic leg, the sheriff’s office said in the statement.
“While a forensic pathologist will have to examine the remains to determine for certain if they are indeed those of Mr. Erwin, investigators are confident the hip and remains belong to him,” the sheriff’s office added.
Mr. Erwin’s family members were informed immediately that the remains had been found.
“All of us at the Camden County Sheriff’s Office who have investigated this case for ten years are elated at the recovery and overjoyed with the closure we know this brings to the family,” the sheriff’s office wrote in their announcement.
