Latest / Crime Night / Finding Bonnie Lee Schultz on Google Earth

Transcript

Finding Bonnie Lee Schultz on Google Earth · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to imagine something for a second.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm listening.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: So you are sitting at your computer. Maybe it's late
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: at night, and you're just you know, killing time.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Right, going down the classic internet rabbit hole exactly.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you bring up a satellite map of your neighborhood.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: You zoom in on your roof, You pan across your street,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and then you follow the local river winding through town,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: just sort.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Of seeing what's out there.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but then you zoom in a little closer, and
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: right there, lurking just beneath the surface of the water,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: you spot this dark, unnatural shape. Oh wow, it's distinctly blue,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: which is completely out of place against all the natural
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: browns and grays of the mud and the rocks.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: That would be so creepy.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Right, So what do you do? I mean, do you
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: just brush it off as like a digital glitch, or
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: do you call the authorities and tell them you might
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: have just located the key to a decade's old mystery.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: It sounds like the ultimate armchair detective fantasy.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Honestly, it really does. But in the case we are
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: looking at today, that exact scenario actually happened.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that blue anomaly on the screen. It wasn't a
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: glitch at all.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: No, it wasn't. It was the catalyst that reignited a
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: massive real world investigation.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: It really is wild.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: So today's deep dive is taking us straight to the
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: muddy banks of the White River. We're looking at the
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: search for Bonnie Lee Schultz.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Which is just a chilling cold case about a woman
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: who vanished without a trace back in the late nineties.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Right, and to understand how this case was suddenly blown
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: wide open. We have these incredible boots on the ground
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: details from the actual physical search of the river.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: It's intense, I mean, navigating dense brush and freezing water,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: all based on a crowdsourced tip exactly.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: And as a real life criminal investigator, I can tell
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: you this completely change of the game.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Oh I bet.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Our mission today is to explore how this modern digital
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: sleuthing you know every day people like you just clicking
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: around on maps, combined with specialized dive teams are literally
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: unearthing physical evidence.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Evidence and cases that have stumped authorities for decades.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the barrier to entry for cracking a cold case
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: has fundamentally shifted.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: It really has. I mean, anyone listening to this, right, now,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: armed with nothing but a laptop and an Internet connection,
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: has the potential to spot something something.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: That highly trained, well funded investigators missed exactly.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: And they miss things simply because well, they just can't
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: be everywhere at once.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Right, which is wild to think about. You could literally
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: pull up a satellite map of your own town right
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: now and spot something the police have been looking for
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: since you were a kid.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: It's a crazy thought.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: So let's get into how this specific search kicked off.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: It all started because a tipster, after hearing about the
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Bonnie Lee Shultz case, was scouring Google Earth.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: And they spotted this blue anomaly in the White River.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But the detail that really caught my attention here
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: as an investigator is that they were looking at a
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: very specific satellite image from the year two thousand and five. Right.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: The timeline of that imagery is the crucial factor.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: It's an incredibly bizarre stroke of luck.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Honestly, it really is. That specific satellite pass in two
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: thousand and five captured the one and only time the
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: water in that particular section of the river was actually clear.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Enough, clear enough to see the object. I mean, they
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: verified that, which is just crazy to me.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: They did.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they went back through the archives, checking satellite images
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: from every other year before and after two thousand.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: And five, and in every other photo the river was
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: just brown, murky, and totally opique.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: You have to consider the dynamic nature of a river
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: ecosystem to really understand how rare that is.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely, a river is essentially a massive moving conveyor
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: belt of dirt.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Right, you have variables like heavy rainfall churning up the.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Bottle, and agricultural runoff, shifting seasonal currents.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so, for whatever meteorological or environmental reason, in two
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: thousand and five, the flow rate dropped.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: And all the suspended particles in the water settled just
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: enough exactly.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: The satellite just happened to snap the photo at that exact,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: perfect moment of clarity.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: It's like finding a needle in a haystack, but the
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: haystick is almost always invisible.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: That is the perfect way to describe it. So, armed
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: with this incredibly lucky two thousand and five image, the
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: search team heads out to the physical coordinates.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Right, they pinpoint the spot and.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: It happens to be right behind a residential house. It's
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: owned by these locals named Danny, Mary Kate, and Ruthie.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: And they were incredibly gracious, right they let the team
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: onto their property to access the water.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: They did. Yeah, But when the team gets to the
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: edge of the yard, the reality of the terrain completely
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: shatters their expectations, because this.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Is not a gentle slope down to a sandy.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Beach, not at all. It's described as a sharp, heavily
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: overgrown cliff.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: It's hostile terrain, highly inaccessible on foot, let alone by
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: a vehicle.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Right, and as an investigator, my brain immediately started waving
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: red flags when I heard about this cliff.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Oh for sure.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: If the working theory is that Bonnie's car ended up
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: in the river at this exact spot via a crash,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I'm just thinking, how.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, theistic don't make sense exactly.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: I'm picturing this overgrown drop off and driving a car
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: off this specific cliff would be like a coordinated Hollywood stunt.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Right. You practically need a ramp, you really would.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: It's too steep and heavily wooded for someone to accidentally
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: swerve off the road and end up perfectly submerged right there.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: The geography just completely contradicts the mechanics of a typical
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: auto accident.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I have to push back on the idea of
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: an accident entirely.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Which is totally fair when you look at the physical barriers.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: A casual, low speed accident resulting in a submerged vehicle
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: there is highly improbable.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Think about the roads around a residential cliff like this.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: The speed limits are slow, right, You aren't barreling down
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: a major interstate at seventy miles an hour, losing control
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: and launching fifty feet through the air.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: You're cruising. If you bump off the road, you hit
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: a tree, you get tangled in the brush.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: You don't cleanly vault over a cliff and into the
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: middle of the river.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: The physical reality of the environment absolutely precludes it. So true,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: But if her car is actually down there at the
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: bottom of this cliff, it wasn't a tragic one person accident.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: No, someone had to purposefully place it.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: There, exactly. They would have had to navigate that terrain intentionally,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: maybe even using heavy equipment or a specific access point
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: that isn't.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: There anymore, just to dump the vehicle and get rid
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: of the evidence.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Right. That changes the entire psychological profile of the disappearance.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: It really does. But let's look at the physical signs
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: of the river itself, because it adds another fascinating layer
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: to this.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's hear it.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Let's assume the car was intentionally dumped near this location
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: back in the late nineties when.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: She vanished, Right, you might wonder why a river wouldn't
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: just wash it away over the decade.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Exactly When a heavy, hollow object like a vehicle first
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: enters moving water, it might float briefly, but once the
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: cabin fills with water and it comes to rest on
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: the bottom, the physics change entirely.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: It just turns into an anchor.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, it becomes part of the riverbed. The sheer weight
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: of a water log car, combined with the suction of
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: river mud and the constant deposition of silt over time,
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: effectively glues it to the bottom.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Wow, So it rarely keeps moving down river on its
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: own once that initial settling process happens.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Right. If it was placed there in the late nineties,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: it makes perfect scientific sense that it would remain entombed
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: in that precise location for years.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Entombment Hmmm, that is a chilling word, but that's the reality.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: It is just waiting for the water to clear. In
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: two thousand and five, unbelievable.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: So the team is standing on the edge of this cliff,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: looking down at the water, gearing up to solve this mystery,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: frozen in mud, and just as they are getting their
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: equipment ready, the homeowners drop a massive bombshell.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: On them, the phantom searchers.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Yes, they find out they aren't even the first people
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: hunting for this car that week.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: That is just wild to me.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Danny, Mary Kate and Ruthie casually mention that just a
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: few days prior, a couple of guys showed up to
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: search the exact same spot.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: That reveals so much about the decentralized nature of modern
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: true crime communities.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Right, you have multiple independent groups of amateur sleuths converging
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: on the exact same physical coordinates.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: All driven by the same shared digital footprint.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and these weren't just guys splashing around with snorpling
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: masks either. The homeowners noted they came equipped with sonar.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, serious gear, serious gear.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: And here's the part that genuinely made my jaw drop
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: that those previous sonar guys actually pulled something out of
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: the river. They found a brake pad.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Wow, and their methodology for analyzing that brake pad is
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: just a perfect snapshot of twenty first century investigation.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: They ran the brake pad through chat GPT.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: That is so crazy, Right.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: They pulled a rusted white piece of metal out of
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: the mud, type the visible serial numbers and descriptions into
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: an AI, and chat GPT told them the part was
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: consistent with a nineteen ninety two vehicle.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: The intersection of standing knee deep in river sledge and
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: consulting in art official intelligence to identify car parts as
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: just surreal.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: It's a fascinating juxtaposition for sure.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: I mean AI can offer rapid preliminary identification based on
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: massive data sets.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: But an algorithm can't swim, it can't dig exactly.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: While chat GPT can give you a statistical probability on
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: a brake pad, it doesn't replace the need for specialized
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: human intervention.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: You still need someone to actually recover the chassis. Which
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: brings us to why the current search team brought in
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: heavy headers.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Right. They didn't rely on AI.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: No, they brought in a professional from Chaos Divers. This
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: is a diver who has six solid years of experience
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: doing exactly this kind of grueling, dangerous underwater recovery.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: The mechanics of this dive are intense. The physical toll
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: on the human body just cannot be overstated here.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: No kidding, This is not a recreational scuba trip in
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: clear tropical waters, not at all.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: He is strapping on eighty pounds of heavy.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Gear eighty pounds a dead weight before he even gets
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: in the water. I mean, I complain when my backpack
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: has a laptop and a heavy water bottle in it.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Right, And the equipment checks are absolutely vital for survival
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: in this specific environment.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they noted, starting with two hundred and eighty four
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: psi of air in his tank, giving him a substantial
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: window of time underwater.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: But the most critical piece of gear he checks is
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: the dump valve.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Oh man, the steaks with that dump valve are terrifying
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: when you really think about what he's doing. Oh yeah,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: he needs that valve to release air from his buoyancy
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: device so we can become negatively buoyant and sink down
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: to search the bottom.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Right, And if you're diving in a clear ocean, a
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: malfunction is bad.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: But if you are thinking yourself into thick river mud
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: and debris and that valve gets jammed with silt, when
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: you need to inflate and float back up.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: You are physically trapped at the bottom of the river
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: underneath eighty pounds of gear.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: The margin for air is essentially zero.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: It really is. He is deliberately sinking into a hazardous,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: zero visibility environment.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: And the environment itself presents a very strange paradox for
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: the search team. Oh so because the water they are
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: diving into is surprisingly shallow.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Oh wait really yeah?
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: If you are listening to this right now and picturing
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: a deep, dark abyss, think again. The diver gets in
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: and he finds that the water is mostly only four
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: and a half to five feet deep. Wow. In one
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: specific spot it peaks at maybe seven feet. If you
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: stood up in most of this search grid, your head
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: would be completely dry.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: That is just so counterintuitive, right, I have.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: To express utter disbelief here. How on Earth can an
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: entire multi ton passenger car hide in a pool of
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: water shallower than a standard backyard swimming pool.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: It completely defies our intuition. We naturally assume a massive
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: object requires massive depth to remain hidden, right exactly, But
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: shallow rivers are incredibly deceptive environments because you have to
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: account for the topography of the river bed, not just
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: the water level.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: And the diver makes a huge point about this. He
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: gets down there and realizes that bottom isn't flat sand
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: or soft silk, right. He specifically emphasizes, he says, big boulders.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: This is big boulders.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Those massive boulders create deep, jagged crevices. And when a
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: vehicle sinks into an environment like that, it doesn't sit
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: flat on a smooth surface like a toy car on
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: a hardwood floor.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: It wedges violently into those crevices at steep angles.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Then you factor in decades of river flow.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Right, the water is constantly carrying sediment, mud, and debris.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: So the river essentially pegs over it.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: That's a great way to put it. The silt packs
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: into the empty spaces around the car.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Filling the crevices between the boulders and the metal chassis.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Over decades, the vehicle becomes completely camouflaged. It blends seamlessly
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: into the natural topography of the riverbed.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: You could literally be standing in five feet of water,
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: your boot's resting right on top of the roof of
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: a car.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: And you would simply think you were standing on a
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: large flat rock covered in Nalogay.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: That is terrifying.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: It really is, and it completely explains the diver's analogy.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Because the water is murky and the bottom is so treacherous,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: he can't just swim normally.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Right, visibility is basically zero.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So he describes using stakes to pull himself along
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: the bottom. He said it was like a skier using
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: poles to pull themselves forward. Just crawling blindly across these
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: giant boulders under the water.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: It is a meticulous, agonizing crawl by touch alone.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: He has a flashlight and a mask, but the visibility
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: in a churned up river is often measured in inches.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: He has to rely entirely on tactile feedback, feeling his
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: way through the freezing mud and.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Rock, just searching for a texture or a shape that
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: doesn't belong in nature. Wow, and then he finds it.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: He actually finds it in just three to four.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Feet of water. Feeling around in the mud, he pulls
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: up an object.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: He holds it up, waving it above the surface, and
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: the team on the shore realizes it's a heavily rusted wheel.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Rim a physical artifact. Immediately changes the stakes of the
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: entire operation.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: It really does they cross a threshold from theory to
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: tangible evidence.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: The moment of discovery shifts everything from a slow, blind
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: underwater crawl to rapid fire implications.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: They have this rusted rim on the bank and immediately
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: the team goes to work cross referencing it.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: And how do they do it?
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: They look it up on.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: eBay, which is another brilliant example of modern crowdsource tools
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: replacing traditional institutional databases.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Right, they compare the rusted heavy metal in their hands
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: to vintage car part listings online and they match the
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: unique hole pattern.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: That's incredible.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: The team realizes they are looking at a rim consistent
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: with a nineteen to ninety Mercury Sable.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Wow. A Mercury Sable.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's even noted that this specific model had
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: spoked hubs and closed hubcaps, which match the exact characteristics
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: of what they just pulled from the mud.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: It's no longer just a vade anomaly on a map
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: or a random piece of trash.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: No, it is a specific mechanical component tied directly to
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the era of the disappearance.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: At this point, the protocol is clear. They have to
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: bring in official law enforcement.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, so they immediately call the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department IMPD. Right,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: they get on the phone with Courtney Carter, and they
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: also mentioned a Sergeant Kishner letting them know they've pulled
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: up physical evidence and are ready to hand it over.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Okay, so the police are involved now.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Yes, But it's during this exchange with the police that
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: we get a massive perspective shifting revelation about how that
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: car might have gotten there in the first place.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: The police introduce a geographic and historical variable that completely
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: rewrites the working theory.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: The officers mentioned a place called the Riviera, which is
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: located near the Broad Ripple Yacht Club. It's just up
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the river from where the team is currently searching. And
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: the police point out that right after Bonnie vanished in
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: the late nineties, a massive flood hit that specific area.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: To understand the implications of that, we have to talk
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: about the hydrodynamics of a major flood.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, laid on me.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: The force generated by millions of gallons of surging water
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: is almost incomprehensible, right, And.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: The homeowner actually backed this up, saying they remembered to
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: water level getting incredibly high during that time.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: So the police theory is that If her car went
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: into the water miles upstream at the Riviera, the sheer
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: force of that massive flood could have easily picked up
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: the vehicle.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Washed it downriver, and wedged it violently into these specific
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: boulders where the team is currently standing.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Think about the physics of that. A car seems incredibly
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: heavy to us, but inside it contains a massive volume
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: of trapped air.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, that makes sense.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: When floodwaters rise rapidly, a car can become buoyant. The
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: turbulent current creates intense underwater vacuums and sheer.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Forces forces that can lift and tumble a three thousand
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: pound vehicle like a tin can exactly.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: The car gets swept along until the river narrows or
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: becomes shallow, hitting a.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Natural choke point like the boulder field.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, those massive boulders the diver was crawling over acted
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: as a filter, catching the car and locking it in
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: place as the floodwaters eventually receded.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, I hear the physics and the logic makes sense,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: But as an investment, I still have to push back
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: on the timeline. Go for it. If the police knew
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: there was a massive flood right after she went missing
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: and they understand the hydrodynamics of how floodwaters wash heavy
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: debris downriver to choke points. Why did it take decades
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: to find this?
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: That is a big question.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Why did it take a random person zooming in on
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: the two thousand and five Google Earth map and an
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: independent dive team dragging themselves through the mud to finally
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: search this exact spot. I mean, if you know a
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: flood happened, shouldn't checking the natural choke points downriver B
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: step one?
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: It highlights the incredibly frustrating reality of municipal cold case investigations.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: You are looking at the harsh limitations of departmental resources
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: versus the sheer, vastness of the natural environment. That's fair,
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: The police likely knew the flood moved debris, But a
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: river is a giant, chaotic shredder. It spreads debris over
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: miles and.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Miles so many places to look.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: There are countless potential choke points, deep pools, and boulder
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: fields along the White River Without a specific focal point
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: an X on the map, dragging the entire river bottom
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: is logistically and financially impossible for any local police department.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: They needed the needle to gleam in the haystack just.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Once, precisely. This entire journey is a remarkable synthesis of
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: nature and human curiosity.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: It took nature to expose the truth. First the terrifying
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: power of the flood moving the car to that boulder
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: field right.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: And second the water temporarily clearing in two thousand and five.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: So the anomaly could be photographed from space.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: But raw environmental data isn't enough on its own. It
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: required intense human curiosity to connect those dots, with.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: The digital tipster scouring the maps, the amateur sonar operators
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: looking for clues.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: And finally the professional diver risking his life in zero
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: visibility to pull up that rim.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: It's the ultimate team effort across time, space and technology.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: So what happens next? What happens if the IMTD confirms
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: that this Mercury sable rim is a definitive match to Bonnie's.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Car, Well, the detail point to a very aggressive next step.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: If it's a confirmed match, they are moving far beyond diving.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: What do you mean?
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: The next phase involves heavy machinery. They'd have to bring
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: in a bulldozer, secure the city's approval, and literally excavate
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: the river bed.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, an actual excavation.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they would have to physically shovel away those massive
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: boulders to unearth the vehicle buried beneath the decades of silt.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Literally moving the earth to find the truth.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: That gives me chills, it really does. So as we
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: wrap up today's analysis, I want you to remember the
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: core insight here.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Information is absolutely everywhere.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: It's beaming down from space satellites orbiting the Earth, and
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: it's buried in the form of rusty metal under four
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: feet of muddy water.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: But raw data, whether it's a blue pixel on a
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: glowing screen or a hit on a sonar display, it
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: just isn't enough on its own.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: It requires human synthesis. It requires someone to care enough
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: to connect those seemingly disparate dots and turn raw data
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: into actionable evidence. So true, and I want to leave
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: you with a lingering thought. Tom all over. Today we
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: all walk around carrying supercomputers in our pockets.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have access to fictionless tools that can spot
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: a submerged anomaly from space with the tap of a finger.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Yet despite all that incredible technology, it still takes a
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: human being strapping on eighty pounds of heavy gear, sinking
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: to the bottom of a river and feeling their way
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: blindly through the freezing mud to actually uncover the truth.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: The digital world can point the way, but the physical
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: world demands that we get our hands dirty.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Absolutely so. As you go about your day, maybe crossing
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: bridges or walking past your local parks, ask yourself what
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: other massive secrets are hiding just a few feet below
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the surface of our everyday environments, just waiting for the
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: water to clear. Stay curious, keep looking closely at the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: world around you, and we'll catch you next time.