An amateur diving team found missing teenager Kiely Rodni’s car in just 35 minutes after cops spent days combing over the same stretch of water a week before.
Adventures With Purpose last night found the missing teens car in Prosser Lake, California, along with the 16-year-olds body, which has yet to be formally identified.
The team took two sonar boats onto the water at 10.40am on August 21, and identified Kiely’s 2013 silver Honda under the water at 11.15am.
They confirmed on Monday that the car had been found 55ft from the shore, submerged in 14ft of water.
Dive teams from Placer County, Nevada County and Alameda County were all involved in the search for the teen who vanished after a party at Prosser Family Campground on August 6.
The body of water was an area cops had previously ticked off the list of possible places she had ended up after the event.
Her cell phone last pinged around 12:30am near the campground’s reservoir after she texted her mother to say she was heading back to Truckee, just 12 miles from the party.
Authorities, including the FBI, say that they scanned through nearly 2,000 tips in the two-week hunt for the youngster, and spent almost 20,000 hours looking for her.
Rodni was last seen on August 6, leaving a party she had attended with other high school graduates near Lake Tahoe, and heading home to Truckee just 12 miles away
Doug Bishop and Nick Rinn announced that they had confirmed the silver vehicle they discovered was the missing teenagers. They added that official authorities would be conducting identification of the remains in the car in the coming weeks during a press conference on Monday
Nick Rinn, pictured, identified the car just 35 minutes after he and Bishop moved their sonar boats onto the water. The team uses state of the art Garmin sonar equipment to search for vehicles in bodies of water, specifically targeting cold cases
Kiely’s family said through a police statement they were waiting until official confirmation before releasing anything in full.
The teenager sent her mother Lindsey, 42, a text message saying she planned to leave in 45 minutes at approximately 11.30pm.
She had been due to meet friends at a local Starbucks at 9am ahead of a camping trip but failed to show up – prompting her mother to sound the alarm.
Placer County Sherriff’s office will hold a press conference at 2pm EST on Monday in Truckee.
Adventures With Purpose announced on August 15th that they would be dropping all of their other cases to help in the hunt for the missing teenager.
In a statement Doug Bishop and Nick Rinn, the two divers on the six-man team, confirmed that they had found the vehicle and confirmed there were remains inside.
Doug and Nick say that their experience is ‘rare’ and that is why authorities ask them to get involved in the searches. They have solved 23 cold cases together and assist families looking for loves ones free of charge
Divers confirmed that they found Rodni’s car, a silver 2013 Honda CRV, in Prosser Lake. They identified the car by the license plate number – 8YUR127
An updated graphic from the police showed they had spent 19,000 hours searching for the missing teenager, with a number of agencies getting involved in the case
They said: ‘Official identification of the remains will be announced once the investigations are complete.
‘There is a limited scope of detail on what we can answer. We began our search on Prosser Lake Reservoir on August 21 at 10.40am.
‘We took two sonar boats into the water, and at 11.15am Nick detected an object under the water using state-of-the-art Garmin tech.
‘I was then able to confirm it was a vehicle in 14ft of water, 55ft offshore. After marking the vehicle out, Nick suited up and conducted the formal assessment of the vehicle.
‘Once we confirmed it was indeed Kiely’s vehicle we immediately notified family and law enforcement, and dad and grandpa were on the scene within minutes.’
Doug added that it had been ‘incredible’ to work with the Placer County Sheriff’s dive team.
He said that Adventures With Purposes experience is ‘rare’ and they consider it an ‘honor’ to help agencies and families across the nation.
Police previously set up a forensic tent at the bottom of a boat ramp that is accessed from the Prosser Family Camp Ground.
A small submarine with a camera attached was also seen being pulled from the water during their previous searches.
Nick, 48, added: ‘I went down and did my inspection. I saw the vehicle upside down, verified the license plate and that there were remains in the vehicle.
‘Then I came out, we called the family and authorities and let them take it from there. Now the water has receded and we’re seeing the vehicle went farther into the water than maybe [police] thought.
‘When a vehicle goes in the water, it has air trapped in it for a while so it will float for a little ways before it fills with water and sinks.’
But how did the team, who say their specialist experience is self-taught, track down the missing teens car in less than an hour after cops scoured the same stretch for days?
What state-of-the-art equipment allowed the YouTube amateur divers to track down the car?
Using their state-of-the-art Garmin sonar technology, the team gets into inflatable boats which all have down imaging, side scan and a live scope to search deep within the water on board.
The tech, which costs between $1,499 and $2,499 just for one part of the sonar equipment, can help to penetrate deep into the water to locate large objects.
Adventures With Purpose have so far helped to close 23 cold cases by using the equipment, and previously said that they ‘self-taught’ themselves how to read sonar in detail.
They said: ‘We started running into human remains in the vehicles and in finding these cars.
‘We self-taught ourselves how to read sonar and we realize, after solving many of these cases, we can read sonar better than some of these law enforcement agencies.’
Their equipment allows them to see through all of the layers of the water, using down and side imaging as well as sonar.
But the authorities searching the same stretch of water days before claim that they were unable to see anything because of the nature of the lakebed – with cops previously saying it was like ‘going through mud’.
Using their state-of-the-art Garmin sonar technology, the team gets into inflatable boats which all have down imaging, side scan and a live scope to search deep within the water on board. They used this to identify the car that was in 14ft of water just 55ft from the shore of the reservoir
Police dive teams joined the search for Kiely on August 9th and exclusive DailyMail.com photos show boats searching the Prosser Creek Reservoir, which is a 760-acre stretch of water
Nick and Doug took to the water on August 21, twelve days after a marine team from the Sheriffs department searched the area and found nothing. The diving pair tracked down and identified the teenagers car in less than half an hour after getting in the boat
Placer County Sherriff’s Office worked with the team to help locate the car, with Doug saying it was an ‘incredible’ experience to work with them.
The dive team was supported by Nevada County’s Marine Unit and Alameda County Sherriff’s Office dive team volunteers.
In total all three units had at least 15 divers who are supported by other volunteers and boast of their sonar and Navy standard tech.
Placer County has a custom build Moose M2 boat which has sonar, diving gear, towing gear and a color digital radar.
Nevada County has a downward looking sonar that is mounted to is largest jet boat, which they said ‘assists the dive team in locating objects submerged in deeper water.’
All three have access to scuba gear, underwater lighting, night goggles and a fleet of different boats.
How much time did authorities spend searching Prosser Lake Reservoir for Kiely?
Police divers started searching for the missing teen three days after she vanished from a graduation party, with sources saying they feared she had accidentally driver her car into the reservoir.
Swimmers were initially sent into the Prosser Lake Reservoir, as authorities were concerned about disturbing the lake bed which could make their search more difficult.
They searched various locations on foot, by air and in water in the two week long hunt for the teenager, but spent two days combing the body of water her car was found in during the first week.
Placer County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Sam Brown previously confirmed that the teams searching the water used a phased approach.
They initially sent out swimmers along the surface using masks to search he reservoir because of the lakebed’s composition, claiming it caused it to become too murky.
The dive team was supported by Nevada County’s Marine Unit and Alameda County Sherriff’s Office dive team volunteers. The car was marked with a red balloon, pictured above, close to the shoreline of the reservoir with law enforcement and the divers taking over the scene over the weekend
Friends said Kiely had appeared very drunk at the party and didn’t think that she would have driven in her state. The teen texted her mother to say that she was returning home but that was the last contact they had with her
A dive team from the Nevada County Sheriff’s Department was on site early Tuesday morning and was seen setting up in a spot next to the reservoir, southwest of the camping area and accessible by a dirt trail
He said: ‘Once you start maneuvering the ground it’s like going through mud. There [are] so many levels to this.
‘We had boats, we had side zones, which allow you to see things, certain types of fish finders, which can go lower down into the water.
‘But at that point we still hadn’t touched the ground or anything like that, once you touch the ground you could potentially have all that earth come back up over any kind of evidentiary item.
‘So divers were the last case scenario in the attempt because for the most part, you could go in over and over and over again, but potentially you get one shot at it.’
Adventures With Purpose became involved in the search and rescue mission from August 15, but only started searching areas on August 20th.
They scoured nearby Lake Donner and other shallower ponds on Saturday, August 20th.
They then went on to Boca Reservoir, putting two boats in the water, where they searched for several more hours, before searching Prosser Lake Reservoir on August 21.
In total the group is understood to have looked for the missing teenager for less than 24 hours, and discovered her car in the previously searched water in just 35 minutes.
Adventures with Purpose: Oregon-based YouTuber who was an eco-warrior cleaning dirty lakes but has now solved 23 missing persons’ cases
Jared Leisek began Adventures with Purpose for fun, to hunt down objects and potentially return them to their owners
The Oregon-based group is a search and rescue dive team, specializing in finding missing people. Their website states they have solved 23 missing persons cases since 2019.
Jared Leisek, the founder, began the YouTube channel as a hobby, recording his adventures as he located cans of soda, cellphones and sunglasses while diving – something he saw as a chance to clean up the environment and find things that others had lost, with the hope of returning them. Leisek found his first submerged car, in Portland, Oregon, by accident. He was then contacted by a family in Warrenton, Missouri, and managed to find the car of Nate Ashby, 22, who vanished in July 2019.
Leisek then paired up with Doug Bishop, who owned a towing company, to start pulling vehicles from the water for environmental purposes. They also used sonar equipment, which Bishop said separates their work from that of law enforcement.
Doug Bishop (left) joined Leisek in his endeavors, and has led the search for Rodni
Bishop told Fox that many police departments may have sonar equipment but may not understand all the technicalities that go along with it. The 10-member group consists of divers and production crew, who film every search and rescue, posting videos on YouTube and other social media pages.
Their services are free for law enforcement and families. They now have 2.42 million subscribers on YouTube, and 1.3 million on Facebook: they are funded by donations, ads on social media, and merchandise sales.
Bishop (left) and Leisek (right) are seen with their equipment, readying for a dive
NOTABLE CASES:
Missouri, December 2019
Their first request was from the family of Nathaniel ‘Nate’ Ashby, who went missing in Warrenton, Missouri, in July 2019. The family found Leisek and Bishop on YouTube, and asked them to come and help. The group found Ashby’s Chevy Silverado in the Missouri River in December 2019.
Leisek told Missouri sheriffs it was probably the most difficult and dangerous operation he had conducted, due to the force of the Missouri River currents. He was also surprised at how quickly the conditions began to deteriorate while he was in the water: the river rose two feet during the nine-hour operation to remove the truck.
Oregon, May 2020
The group set out to recover a car from 80ft below the river in Portland. But they also came across another vehicle, a silver Mazda, which contained the remains of a man who had been missing for 12 years. Timothy Robinson, 56, disappeared in November 2008.
Arkansas, October 2021
The group were dispatched to Russellville, Arkansas, to investigate a tip about the possible remains of a woman who disappeared with her daughter 23 years previously. Samantha Hopper was traveling in her blue Ford Tempo in September 1998 to drop off her daughter, Courtney Holt, before heading to a concert in Little Rock. The car with the pair’s remains was found in eight feet of water in the Illinois Bayou, off of Pleasant View Road.
Texas, January 2022
The group was sent a message, informing them about a missing person case that they felt Adventures with Purpose could help with. Leisek got in touch with Bianca Torres, whose mother, Stephanie, disappeared in Waco in December 2017.
The group began searching near the East Boat Launch of the Brazos Valley, and found the missing 43-year-old. Relatives said she was depressed and suicidal, due to the pain from Fibromyalgia.