Speaker 1: Mother Knows Death Presents External Exams with Nicole and Jimmy.
Speaker 2: Hi, everyone, welcome to Mother Knows Death. Recently, on Mother
Speaker 2: Knows Death, we talked about a local news story involving
Speaker 2: three cars pulled out of the river, one of which
Speaker 2: that had human remains belonging to a woman who was
Speaker 2: missing for fourteen years. It's always shocking when a missing
Speaker 2: person is found years later, but this case was even
Speaker 2: more shocking because the body was not found by police,
Speaker 2: but it was found by a nonprofit missing person's advocacy
Speaker 2: organization called United Search Corps. On today's External Exam, we
Speaker 2: will be talking to Doug Bishop, who is an underwater
Speaker 2: search and rescue expert as well as founder of United
Speaker 2: Search Corps. Hi, Doug, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for being here. I just learned about
Speaker 2: your organization and I can't wait to share it with
Speaker 2: all of our listeners because it's so great. But before
Speaker 2: we start talking about this recent case, I want to
Speaker 2: know a little bit about your background, like how did
Speaker 2: you get interested in underwater search and recovery?
Speaker 1: Right, pretty much by accident. I've spent my entire life
Speaker 1: in the towing industry, and several years ago I got
Speaker 1: into recovering vehicles underwater, utilizing different technology to discover vehicles
Speaker 1: in order to recover them for environmental purposes, and it
Speaker 1: just completely transformed into helping families full time to find
Speaker 1: their missing loved ones, particularly in missing ursus cold cases
Speaker 1: where people are missing and also missing with vehicles.
Speaker 2: So that is why you started this organization. What made
Speaker 2: you feel like there was a need for this particular organization,
Speaker 2: Were you having people to you or what made you
Speaker 2: decide to start this organization.
Speaker 1: Well, after being a part of solving dozens of cold
Speaker 1: cases in similar fashion, we you know, came to the
Speaker 1: conclusion that, you know, there's obviously a big need for
Speaker 1: this type of specialized searching within missing persons cases. When
Speaker 1: you bring up the element of cold cases, you know,
Speaker 1: then you're now factoring in different agencies a lack of
Speaker 1: resources in order to work cold cases. You know, some states,
Speaker 1: in local municipalities, they don't even have the budgets for it.
Speaker 1: So we're encroaching on what uncovered a gray area within
Speaker 1: law enforcement, especially when it comes to the utilization of
Speaker 1: sonar within searches, and we deemed it necessary to form
Speaker 1: a nonprofit so that we can hopefully one day get
Speaker 1: the support that we need to do this on a
Speaker 1: large scale, but also give back and correct the gray
Speaker 1: area which I would just referred to within law enforcement,
Speaker 1: and start training and consulting with agencies like we've been
Speaker 1: doing in order to put those who are in place
Speaker 1: to do it full time, you know, pretty much equip
Speaker 1: them with the knowledge and wherewithal to do it themselves.
Speaker 2: Does your organization just specialize in underwater rescue or is
Speaker 2: it for any person that's missing someone or has a
Speaker 2: cold case that has not been solved.
Speaker 1: You know, each case is unique, no case, no case
Speaker 1: is the same, you know, area is the same. We
Speaker 1: rely solely on donations, so we're at the mercy of
Speaker 1: donations to do any type of search. So number one,
Speaker 1: it's our funding. Do we have the funding to do
Speaker 1: a search and or are we the right resource for that?
Speaker 1: We work with other organizations when we're not the right resource.
Speaker 1: We do searches that are on land as well. And
Speaker 1: also a big part of what we do is advocate
Speaker 1: for families. Most of the families that we come into
Speaker 1: contact with have never had any help at all, and
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily know or we're aware that anything like
Speaker 1: this even exists. So, you know, advocating for a missing
Speaker 1: person and their family is the number one biggest thing
Speaker 1: that we do, not to mention searching as well as
Speaker 1: you know, bringing answers to the family, like we've been
Speaker 1: able to do, you know, several times over the last
Speaker 1: couple of weeks here in Jersey.
Speaker 2: So how does a family This is my question because
Speaker 2: I've never heard of anything like this, and I love
Speaker 2: that we get to share this and this case hopefully
Speaker 2: will really blow this open for you because it's such
Speaker 2: a great thing that you're doing. It's just how does
Speaker 2: somebody even find out about you that that just has
Speaker 2: a case like this? They do maybe a Google search
Speaker 2: or something and come across your website. How do they
Speaker 2: go about contacting you info?
Speaker 1: You know, ad United search core dot org. That's our
Speaker 1: email for case processing and also our website, United search
Speaker 1: core dot org. And you know a lot of our
Speaker 1: cases come through agencies from detectives themselves and family members
Speaker 1: or simply community members that reach out that are familiar
Speaker 1: with the work that I do, such as stories that
Speaker 1: are written podcasts like yourself the podcast as you're doing
Speaker 1: right now. Will fall on the years of some missing
Speaker 1: person's family or a community members somewhere that will take
Speaker 1: the time to look into cases in their area and
Speaker 1: send us an email saying, hey, guys, we found this
Speaker 1: case in our area, and so forth. Regardless of how
Speaker 1: we get a case, we vet them and then we
Speaker 1: enter them into our system. That way, when we're in
Speaker 1: particular areas, you know, we can reach out to family
Speaker 1: or local law enforcement to be utilized as a tool
Speaker 1: for that particular case.
Speaker 2: So when you get cases submitted to you, what what's
Speaker 2: the process like? Do you have a board that you
Speaker 2: all sit down and talk. Is this something that we
Speaker 2: could handle? And if so, how I guess you did
Speaker 2: say earlier that there were times that you think it's
Speaker 2: not within the realm of what you do, and then
Speaker 2: you would send it elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we number one, we process every email our
Speaker 1: volunteers do when they come in. Then they're passed on
Speaker 1: to another layer of vetting and then you know, either
Speaker 1: myself or one of our other specialists will look into it,
Speaker 1: which we're all volunteers. Basically none of us get paid
Speaker 1: to do this. And when we're able to vet them
Speaker 1: to make sure that somebody is missing. Uh, then you know,
Speaker 1: it just breaks that barrier of okay, this is a
Speaker 1: legit case because for those of you who are listening
Speaker 1: and watching this, there were half a million people go
Speaker 1: missing every year and the majority of them are found.
Speaker 1: So a lot of the missing person's cases that do
Speaker 1: get turned into us end up being cases, you know,
Speaker 1: just from older information that haven't been updated, articles and posts, podcasts, videos,
Speaker 1: you name it. So it's really important that we vet them,
Speaker 1: and you know, our process mainly is, you know, is
Speaker 1: this a legit case? For one? Is there components here
Speaker 1: that forced us to reach out to law enforcement? Are
Speaker 1: their components? You know? Is their family involved? Is there
Speaker 1: no family involved? All of those different things we break
Speaker 1: down within that case once we know it's a legit case,
Speaker 1: and then we decide our board decides whether or not
Speaker 1: we have the resources to take on that case or
Speaker 1: where the appropriate resource and it just pretty much gets
Speaker 1: disseminated like that, you know, according to you know a
Speaker 1: bunch of different moving factors. There's every missing person's case
Speaker 1: is different, every area is different. The circumstances within those cases,
Speaker 1: the individual that's missing, there's no case that's the same.
Speaker 1: So it's pretty complex.
Speaker 2: And for this particular case that we're talking about. So
Speaker 2: this family called you, how how can you give us
Speaker 2: a timeline as to when they contacted you about their
Speaker 2: family member that had been missing for so long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we initially did not get notified by family
Speaker 1: on this particular case. The Black and Missing Foundation did
Speaker 1: a post on their platform mentioning the case details which
Speaker 1: Black and Missing Foundation is a great advocacy group for
Speaker 1: spreading awareness for people that are missing. They mentioned that
Speaker 1: there was a vehicle involved in this disappearance and quite
Speaker 1: a few people sent us emails in regards to this
Speaker 1: and us being in the region over the last month
Speaker 1: and a half, we had the opportunity, in between other
Speaker 1: operations in New York to come and perform searches on
Speaker 1: this particular case, and thankfully we were successful. I'm here
Speaker 1: in the Philly Camden region. We have seventeen different cases
Speaker 1: where people are missing and missing with vehicles, so there's
Speaker 1: a lot of searching that's going to be taking place,
Speaker 1: you know, over the next several weeks.
Speaker 2: What made you guys look in that particular area for
Speaker 2: the car.
Speaker 1: Pretty much every case that we do, before we do it,
Speaker 1: we develop a profile on the person that we're looking for,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, what information do we have with
Speaker 1: the who, what, when, where? Why? The the who were they?
Speaker 1: Where were they employed? Their home address, what were their hobbies?
Speaker 1: Where did their lovers live, their family members live? As
Speaker 1: much information as we can gather to determine where we search.
Speaker 1: In this particular case, the biggest thing was, you know,
Speaker 1: according to law enforcement, her last known whereabouts were at
Speaker 1: her home that evening. Her son actually spent the evening
Speaker 1: with her, left around eleven PM, and several hours later
Speaker 1: she you know, just vanished. Her children visited her house
Speaker 1: once they realized she was gone, noticed that she had
Speaker 1: not returned, so we knew it was pretty accurate that
Speaker 1: her last known location was her home address. Verify location.
Speaker 1: At that point, without any other you know, mitigating factors
Speaker 1: or something taking us into a different area, It's then okay,
Speaker 1: weird need to identify the closest body of waters that
Speaker 1: are deep enough to conceal a vehicle, which in her scenario,
Speaker 1: she was just several blocks away from the Cooper River itself.
Speaker 1: Where we ended up locating her vehicle was just approximately
Speaker 1: a mile down the Cooper River near a park area
Speaker 1: where there's basically no obstructions for a vehicle to enter
Speaker 1: the water. So the Cooper River was our main focus
Speaker 1: to start with. Typically, you know, we didn't go from
Speaker 1: there was the next closest body of water, which you know,
Speaker 1: in this scenario, it would have been the Delaware River
Speaker 1: or one of the other smaller reservoir ponds and so
Speaker 1: forth in the region.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I guess that would make sense that she
Speaker 2: would be driving around her neighborhood. I'm very familiar with
Speaker 2: the area because I told you earlier. My husband's a
Speaker 2: firefighter there, and I've lived around here my entire life.
Speaker 2: I just want to describe to everyone with this particular
Speaker 2: area where you found the car, is that every single
Speaker 2: time we drive by it because it's the Cooper River
Speaker 2: is a big river. But this particular area where the
Speaker 2: car was found is behind this semi seedy strip mall
Speaker 2: area and behind the pub, which is like this awesome
Speaker 2: restaurant that we love. But every time you go back there,
Speaker 2: you just you're just like, something good's not happening back here.
Speaker 2: It's just like a little shady back here.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's really dark. It's a really dark area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just dark and it just looks. It just looks.
Speaker 2: It's not It's funny because the Cooper River is very beautiful.
Speaker 2: On the other side of Route on thirty, it's there's
Speaker 2: people rowing and sitting there eating like picnic. And then
Speaker 2: on the other side of the road, it's it's nobody's
Speaker 2: just sitting back there to look at the pretty water.
Speaker 2: It just looks a little shady, I guess, I would say,
Speaker 2: back there. So you so the car then was not
Speaker 2: sticking up out of the water. You went, how did
Speaker 2: you how did you first determine that there were car
Speaker 2: cars under the water at that at that particular area.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we we arrived later in the day and
Speaker 1: you know, we put our equipment into the river, I
Speaker 1: would say, adjacent to the wah Wah downstream from where
Speaker 1: we ended up locating right there near park. We immediately
Speaker 1: detected a vehicle right there off the park's edge. We
Speaker 1: set up our dive equipment we don't want it, identified
Speaker 1: that vehicle, and then continued the search up the river
Speaker 1: into the Cooper River. Because we've previously searched other parts
Speaker 1: of the Cooper River in the past, so this particular
Speaker 1: stretch was of importance to clear this time, and when
Speaker 1: we got up there to where we located her vehicle,
Speaker 1: we located an additional five vehicles in that entire little
Speaker 1: stretch there, so a total of six the vehicles that
Speaker 1: were able to be removed, we did remove all three
Speaker 1: of them, one of them in which the one that
Speaker 1: did contain Bernardine's remains.
Speaker 2: Well, that's just so amazing. It's just crazy to think
Speaker 2: that so many people just drive their car into the
Speaker 2: river and it's there, nobody knows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that particular area, you know, which is great for
Speaker 1: you guys being local, and I'm sure you have a
Speaker 1: lot of local following, you know, advocating for a safety barrier.
Speaker 1: There is real deal. There's no obstruction, let alone even
Speaker 1: a curb at that location to prevent a vehicle from
Speaker 1: going in. We did move the picnic table right in
Speaker 1: front of that little area right there, but a picnic
Speaker 1: table was not going to stop you know, someone having
Speaker 1: a medical accident or somebody that is intoxicated or simply
Speaker 1: recklessly driving and loses control and enters right into the river.
Speaker 1: One vehicle is one thing. Two vehicles, three vehicles, six
Speaker 1: vehicles in that area. Obviously there's over you know, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to label it that. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: risk factor there that has been identified. Big time vehicles
Speaker 1: are going in there. Let alone, we're addressing somebody that
Speaker 1: has lost their life in doing so. So there's it's
Speaker 1: an issue there that needs to be corrected for, you know,
Speaker 1: so this doesn't happen in the future.
Speaker 2: Do you have any idea what the other cars were
Speaker 2: doing in there? Did they did they have license plates
Speaker 2: on them or that's I mean, that's just something you
Speaker 2: don't really deal with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we we identify all the vehicles as much
Speaker 1: as we can during our searching that you know, when
Speaker 1: we give that data to the local, state or federal
Speaker 1: agencies in the area, uh, you know, they can decipher
Speaker 1: whether or not they're connected to other major crimes and
Speaker 1: so forth. Most of the majority, of overwhelming majority of
Speaker 1: vehicles that we find underwater are connected to you know,
Speaker 1: violent crimes and insurance fraud and and so forth. You know,
Speaker 1: no cars underwater for a good reason. So it's it's
Speaker 1: it's always alarming to find a car, even though you know,
Speaker 1: we've we've found so many of them, you know, across
Speaker 1: the country, and it's good to get them out. It's
Speaker 1: not only is there evidence possibly in those vehicles, but
Speaker 1: those you know, the tons of toxins within the glues,
Speaker 1: the oils, the synthetics, they don't need to be in
Speaker 1: our waterways if we can get them out. So it's
Speaker 1: it's good that we were able to get the three
Speaker 1: that were recoverable out of the river there.
Speaker 2: What's the feeling like when when you pull the car
Speaker 2: out and it's the one that you were looking for?
Speaker 1: It's very power, powerful stuff, you know, we're in those moments,
Speaker 1: you're realizing that you're able to give a family and
Speaker 1: a community answers to a nightmare. You know, no human
Speaker 1: being is meant to go through a tragedy and losing
Speaker 1: somebody and not knowing what happened. That's the worst. We're
Speaker 1: not wired. Nobody is wired for that. And when you
Speaker 1: don't have those answers, you know, you're you're forced to
Speaker 1: put up walls and create walls of what ifs, and
Speaker 1: those things just sit there and they sit there, and
Speaker 1: what it built within those walls because you put them
Speaker 1: up is torture. It is torture being in between those walls.
Speaker 1: So having answers to something you know and that now
Speaker 1: allows you to process and grieve and move on no
Speaker 1: matter how horrific the loss is. If you have the answers,
Speaker 1: you can process it. You know, without those answers, you
Speaker 1: can't process it. And that's that's just a real life
Speaker 1: nightmare that we're just not meant to go through. So
Speaker 1: knowing that you can relieve I can relieve those families
Speaker 1: of you know, that type of grief and relieve them
Speaker 1: is there really aren't words within the human language that
Speaker 1: can describe that. Really, it's it's powerful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, what you're doing it's just so great.
Speaker 2: I always say that on the podcast. We talk about
Speaker 2: these stories all the time of people that you have
Speaker 2: a loved one that goes missing, and there always has
Speaker 2: to be some amount of hope that maybe she drove
Speaker 2: away and she just had a mental breakdown and started
Speaker 2: another life and she'll want to come back or something.
Speaker 2: When you don't have a concrete body and think about this,
Speaker 2: when like kids get kidnapped or anything, it's just so
Speaker 2: terrible to have. It must be the worst thing that
Speaker 2: a human has to go through, really, So that's so
Speaker 2: cool that you're able to help people with that. So
Speaker 2: when you found her car, obviously you were going to
Speaker 2: open it and see what was inside, and I know
Speaker 2: that there were human remains inside. I'm assuming after fourteen
Speaker 2: years it was just skeletonized remains. What was that something
Speaker 2: you were able to identify yourself.
Speaker 1: Or is that?
Speaker 2: I mean I know that you guys called the police
Speaker 2: at some point and say, hey, we found this, but
Speaker 2: you were able to identify that, Yeah.
Speaker 1: We've and yeah we identified the vehicle. We identified you know,
Speaker 1: the vehicle in the remains prior to notifying law enforcement.
Speaker 1: That way, you know where we're not unjustly you know,
Speaker 1: creating you know a lot of resources to be wasted.
Speaker 1: So whenever we do make those notifications to law enforcement,
Speaker 1: you know, we were pretty thorough with what we turn
Speaker 1: over to them. And yeah, this vehicle it was identified
Speaker 1: to be her after the fact during the recovery, which
Speaker 1: Camping County Prosecutor's Office was absolutely thorough with their exhaustion
Speaker 1: of resources and the resources capability was just really top notch.
Speaker 1: I do this around the country, So when I say that,
Speaker 1: I can say that, you know, that means a lot.
Speaker 1: When I say that, don't take it lightly, because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of there's a lot of this country that
Speaker 1: our law enforcement does not have the capability or the
Speaker 1: resources due to budgets and all of that type of stuff,
Speaker 1: or simply that's just an adequate whereas though since I've
Speaker 1: been here in Jersey has honestly been one of the
Speaker 1: most impressive experiences on the recoveries that I've done recently
Speaker 1: related to cold cases.
Speaker 2: Well that's good to know because I live here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, very thorough. The Medical Examiner's Office, the Prosecutor's Office,
Speaker 1: Camdeon PD, the Belmoir dive team was lights out. They
Speaker 1: were able to to get the job done. It it's
Speaker 1: not easy to do this type of stuff in water.
Speaker 1: You can't see there's because it's lights out, there's no eyes.
Speaker 1: You got to use your ten ten eyes in order
Speaker 1: to see underwater. And when you factor in currents and
Speaker 1: also you know, doing something as serious as an underwater
Speaker 1: forensics recovery, uh, there's there's very little room for error.
Speaker 1: And the guys were just lights out with it. So
Speaker 1: when you.
Speaker 2: Call police and in these cases, is there ever any
Speaker 2: like weirdness stepping on toast thing, you're you're working in
Speaker 2: my jurisdiction thing, or how is your work received?
Speaker 1: Never? I never have a problem, you know, communication is key,
Speaker 1: respect is key. If I have twenty law enforcement representatives
Speaker 1: out there, a good majority of them are familiar with
Speaker 1: the work that I do. And also it's it's it's
Speaker 1: how you carry yourself, it's how you represent yourself. And
Speaker 1: you know, I just don't have that problem, thankfully. Knock
Speaker 1: on wood. There's never a lot of egos involved. Obviously
Speaker 1: after the fact. You know, when you involve media and
Speaker 1: so forth, there you get a lot of the component
Speaker 1: of how come this guy did it? And you know,
Speaker 1: you know, the resources that we have, you know, tax
Speaker 1: payers dollars going towards didn't do it. You always get
Speaker 1: a lot of that. But what I do is specialize.
Speaker 1: There is no training in law enforcement for what it
Speaker 1: is that I do. Like they falls back on that
Speaker 1: gray area that we identified, which is why we form
Speaker 1: the nonprofit and the technology that I'm utilizing today didn't
Speaker 1: exist when most of these people that we recover went missing.
Speaker 1: So there's a there's a lot of different factors into hey,
Speaker 1: why did this guy do it? And they didn't do it?
Speaker 1: Outside of that, you know, those pretty much never have
Speaker 1: a problem. It's always a pleasure to work with law
Speaker 1: enforcement across the country. And it's surprising, you know how
Speaker 1: a lot of times just kind of like surreal that
Speaker 1: I'm even capable of doing these types of things. But
Speaker 1: it keeps happening and happening and happening, and even though
Speaker 1: we're sitting here discussing one of the cases that we've
Speaker 1: recently saw, still just doesn't seem real. It's some pretty
Speaker 1: extreme stuff. It's I mean, it's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that like miracles are made of, and it's just really surreal.
Speaker 2: I was thinking that, like this family, because I want
Speaker 2: to know what happened when you call them and what
Speaker 2: their reaction was. They must think that it's a miracle
Speaker 2: that you were able to do this for them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the family was absolutely amazing, just some of the
Speaker 1: most genuine, caring, down earth people that you could ever meet.
Speaker 1: And her children have lived the last fourteen years not
Speaker 1: knowing where their mother is, their grandmother is, And that's
Speaker 1: that's tough, you know, any family that loses their loved
Speaker 1: one mentioned earlier, you know, it kind of you you
Speaker 1: have to draw on the blanks. You have to what
Speaker 1: if what happened, where are they? And then you have
Speaker 1: all the nasty scammers in these cases, and I deal
Speaker 1: with it in almost every cold case that I work with,
Speaker 1: where people which attack these families and their most vulnerable moments,
Speaker 1: knowing how desperate they are, and so you know, they
Speaker 1: they go down these rabbit holes of these leads and
Speaker 1: these people that are talking to them year after year
Speaker 1: after year, and it's torture. It's absolute torture. But you
Speaker 1: have to follow up on it as a family member
Speaker 1: because you just want to find your loved one. You
Speaker 1: just want you'll do anything to find your loved one,
Speaker 1: whether it's travel three states away like they did, and
Speaker 1: you know all this other stuff that I really don't
Speaker 1: want to get into, but it's tragic what they have
Speaker 1: to go through, you know, year after year after year.
Speaker 1: And then when you involve any other component as far
Speaker 1: as you know, anything going on in their life at
Speaker 1: the time that may be off just a little bit,
Speaker 1: then they become these extravagant conspiracies of what ifs, and
Speaker 1: this happened or that person did it because this doesn't
Speaker 1: add up now, because that doesn't add up, it's it's oh,
Speaker 1: they did it. You know something's off here, And those
Speaker 1: are just natural those are the natural torture things that
Speaker 1: go on within families of lost ones that don't have
Speaker 1: answers because they don't know, and simply giving them the answers,
Speaker 1: I mean, you could see it just melts off of them.
Speaker 1: Everything that they've been carrying just instantly disappears instantly. And
Speaker 1: that's just something that I mean, you can't even put
Speaker 1: that stuff into words. With this, like watching it just
Speaker 1: melt the way and all the worry go away, and
Speaker 1: that the shock of you know, grief finally being able
Speaker 1: to set in processing you know, now they know, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the situations that I get into, some
Speaker 1: of them are great, some of them are horrific. But
Speaker 1: even in those moments like they're they're still able to
Speaker 1: process it, you know. And the family was very very
Speaker 1: grateful when I met with them, and uh, I don't
Speaker 1: know where, Like it's just I'm just at lost for
Speaker 1: words to try to even to describe what it is,
Speaker 1: even though I've done this whole lot. It's tough. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's tough stuff to try to describe because it's
Speaker 1: it's not natural to be able to. Yeah, just you're
Speaker 1: like healing somebody, you know, they're being healed by knowing
Speaker 1: now you know, all of the things like that they
Speaker 1: described to me. Moving forward, now they can do without knowing,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, long I have to look over
Speaker 1: your shoulder wondering, ohways at them? Or am I going
Speaker 1: to see them? Or I wonder if they're coming back,
Speaker 1: or I wonder if this horrific thing happened, or you know,
Speaker 1: there's so many different variables to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially when an adult is missing with a car there,
Speaker 2: I guess there always is the possibility that they just
Speaker 2: kind of ran away and started a new life or something.
Speaker 2: And I can't even imagine what that's like. And then
Speaker 2: growing up as a child with your mother missing like
Speaker 2: that and feeling did they not want to did they
Speaker 2: not love me? Did they leave me? You know, you
Speaker 2: just don't have any And she she had a history
Speaker 2: of depression or something. Is that correct?
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's she had some issues with with with depression.
Speaker 1: They tended those things tended to get inflated a little bit,
Speaker 1: like I was telling you about, the little thing become
Speaker 1: really big things, and you know, in an investigative standpoint
Speaker 1: and so forth, Yeah, it's it's natural for that to happen.
Speaker 1: You know, there were some factors that led people to
Speaker 1: believe you know that she left, she might have harmed herself,
Speaker 1: and so forth. A lot of times when we find
Speaker 1: the where, it makes the why a lot more clear.
Speaker 1: In this scenario, I mean, I firmly believe that this
Speaker 1: is simply an accident along the corner of that road,
Speaker 1: late at night, it's very dark, zero zero obstructions to
Speaker 1: get in, and you know, there's obviously other vehicles in
Speaker 1: there too that went in at that same spot or nearby.
Speaker 1: It's just so easy to say, oh, you know, she
Speaker 1: did this or she did that. It's it's not a
Speaker 1: natural thing to do. You know, That's not a natural
Speaker 1: way for a you know, a woman to go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I believe it was just an accident, just a
Speaker 1: really tragic accident.
Speaker 2: This episode is brought to you by the Grosser Room.
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Speaker 2: have been doing Mother Nos Death. We did about fifty
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Speaker 2: will see there. What time of year did she go missing.
Speaker 2: I'm just curious if it was like icy conditions or anything.
Speaker 1: No, there were no icy conditions. It was really good
Speaker 1: weather in but it was at night when she went missing. Theoretically,
Speaker 1: there were neighbors that said that she left late at night,
Speaker 1: and it fit the Sun's timeline. The Sun had visited
Speaker 1: with her the night before prior, and she was fine,
Speaker 1: She was very loving. She had had a couple of
Speaker 1: drinks that evening. I believe there was a beer still
Speaker 1: sitting on the porch. So why she went out, we
Speaker 1: don't know. We don't know why she went out, but
Speaker 1: I think it's just just simply an accident.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you can on that road back there.
Speaker 2: It's it is pitch dark back there, and it's the
Speaker 2: back of a shopping center, which isn't the greatest shopping center,
Speaker 2: so it's probably not well lit. And you could drive
Speaker 2: really fast on that road if you wanted to.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And while we were sitting there, we were,
Speaker 1: you know, wondering, like, man, we're going to see it
Speaker 1: in right here because a big sweeping bin. Cars are
Speaker 1: racing back and forth, and you know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of energy back there, like you were getting at and people,
Speaker 1: you know, up to no good people that are in
Speaker 1: and through there. They're cutting through from main Street to
Speaker 1: main Street, so they're rushing to get through there. And
Speaker 1: then at night it's so dark, even when they're with
Speaker 1: me and you know, the FBI and other people out
Speaker 1: there that like it was pitch pitch black out there,
Speaker 1: and if it weren't for the lights on our dive unit,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, it's really really creepy back there at night.
Speaker 1: For sure.
Speaker 2: I've known you've done some other interviews before this even happened,
Speaker 2: just because you are an underwater recovery expert, and I
Speaker 2: know that you were recently on the news talking about
Speaker 2: the men who died in the Francis Scott Key Bridge
Speaker 2: in Baltimore when it collapsed. Can you explain what may
Speaker 2: have happened to the victims in that case on the bridge? Yeah,
Speaker 2: like they were they were working on the bridge, right,
Speaker 2: and some of them were possibly inside of their truck
Speaker 2: eating lunch or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then the initiative reports that we got and
Speaker 1: so forth, you know, coroborated that like they were having lunch.
Speaker 1: There were several of them that were in a vehicle
Speaker 1: or two and they were trapped, absolutely trapped. You know,
Speaker 1: whether or not it's you know, a bridge tragedy, an
Speaker 1: accident like we're discussing that Bernardine was in, or a
Speaker 1: simple roadside accident. It's key to have something that will
Speaker 1: prevent you from being trapped within your vehicle. I can
Speaker 1: only imagine what that's like. I know, I've found a
Speaker 1: lot of people trapped that were trapped in their vehicle,
Speaker 1: and I can guarantee you each and every one of
Speaker 1: them wished they had something that could get out of
Speaker 1: the vehicle. So I'm very passionate about the the tool
Speaker 1: that we sell on our website, United search core dot org,
Speaker 1: The Window Breaker it's made in America. It's the most
Speaker 1: cost effective ten dollars you can spend in your entire life.
Speaker 1: Pretty much. It will save your life, it can help
Speaker 1: save somebody else's life. It'll cut your seatbelt, it'll bust
Speaker 1: open your window, and it's priceless. It's absolutely priceless to
Speaker 1: have one of those on your keychain. And if you
Speaker 1: don't have it, it's going to take a miracle to
Speaker 1: get out of your vehicle. It's not easy. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of myths of using your head rest to get out.
Speaker 1: Your head rest is not going to break your window,
Speaker 1: your visor or some people have these fancy devices that
Speaker 1: they keep in their glovebox. Anything in your glovebox is
Speaker 1: not going to be accessible in an emergency. The odds
Speaker 1: of you being able to reach your glove box when
Speaker 1: you're pined to your seat or so forth, or your
Speaker 1: car has flipped, or your car has gone underwater and
Speaker 1: you know there's pressure issues and all that, just those
Speaker 1: seconds of having that in your globbox is not going
Speaker 1: to help you. You need something that's accessible near your
Speaker 1: steering wheel and it's going to stay there within arm's reach,
Speaker 1: or it's not going to be of use in order
Speaker 1: to save your life. Those moments are I'm sure, really
Speaker 1: really horrific moments for anybody who has, you know, gone
Speaker 1: through anything like that. I've been in a towing industry
Speaker 1: in my whole life, so I'm very familiar with really
Speaker 1: bad accidents and whether that's in water or on land.
Speaker 1: Simple car accidents kill people every single day, simply from
Speaker 1: smoke inhalation. A small accident that you would look at
Speaker 1: and think, wow, somebody died in that accident. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: their doors were pinned a little bit and they couldn't
Speaker 1: get out. Meanwhile, you know, smoke got into the cab
Speaker 1: and and you know they couldn't release the smoke because
Speaker 1: the windows don't go down, so you need something to
Speaker 1: break the window. There's so many different factors of why
Speaker 1: it's important to have that particular tool, Like I was
Speaker 1: on Fox discussing, it's important it'll save your life or
Speaker 1: to save somebody else's life. Whether it's a hot day
Speaker 1: like you were talking about it today it was a
Speaker 1: hot day at the zoo. If you were to come
Speaker 1: in the.
Speaker 2: Parking ride, my brain completely.
Speaker 1: And if if you're in a park a lot and
Speaker 1: there's a child or an animal trapped in a car
Speaker 1: and you can seriously see that something like this, they
Speaker 1: need to be rescued. If you have that on your keychain,
Speaker 1: you can easily pop somebody's window. And I'm not advocating
Speaker 1: for this, but absolutely do it. You know you can.
Speaker 1: You can save a pet, a child. It happens all
Speaker 1: the time, all the time. Every single day, somebody loses
Speaker 1: their life because they do not have one of those devices.
Speaker 1: And it's ten bucks ten dollars. Is I mean we
Speaker 1: can even buy anything anymore for ten dollars, let.
Speaker 2: Alone, you can make a coffee.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's tough. In any of those that we sell,
Speaker 1: all one percent of the proceeds go to helping families
Speaker 1: advocating for them searching. Every little bit of it goes
Speaker 1: to what it is that we do at United Search School.
Speaker 2: Do you think the guys on the Francis Scott key
Speaker 2: Bridge if they had a similar type of tool? And
Speaker 2: because this is how I look at it, and this
Speaker 2: is why I'm glad that I heard that interview with you,
Speaker 2: because I don't I don't really think about that. I
Speaker 2: drive in the car all the time with my kids
Speaker 2: and stuff, but I don't. I'm like a regular person.
Speaker 2: I don't really think about that I'm ever going to
Speaker 2: fall into the water because I say, like, oh, I
Speaker 2: don't live down the shore, even though I do cross
Speaker 2: water all the time, I'm on the bridge whatever, so
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't really. I never really thought about
Speaker 2: what I would do if I was in the car
Speaker 2: with the kids. So what is this acronym that you
Speaker 2: have that helps people with that?
Speaker 1: So it's swoc or it used to be sw COO.
Speaker 1: But the gist of it is when you have that tool,
Speaker 1: it's you cut your seatbelt. If you cannot catch your
Speaker 1: seatbelt off. A lot of times your seat belt will jam.
Speaker 1: You cannot get it off. Your seat belt will kill
Speaker 1: you in a lot of these car accidents. So having
Speaker 1: something that can slice through it seatbelts Number one. Window,
Speaker 1: You go for your window, whether your electronics still work,
Speaker 1: put it down. If they don't work, which is really common,
Speaker 1: or it's the pressure won't allow it to go down.
Speaker 1: You can use it to bust the window open. After
Speaker 1: your window is open, your seatbelt window out. Children are first.
Speaker 1: That's the acronym as we stand right now, And this
Speaker 1: is developed by Gordon respect Out of Canada, who is
Speaker 1: a professional when it comes to being trapped in a
Speaker 1: vehicle underwater. He has done the most extensive research when
Speaker 1: it comes to that, and that's what it is that
Speaker 1: we follow at the United Starch Corp. Which is seat
Speaker 1: belt first, then your window out. Children are first. Always
Speaker 1: children first, because once you get out, you're not getting
Speaker 1: back in that vehicle. So if you were to get
Speaker 1: out and your children are in there, your children are trapped,
Speaker 1: you have seconds to react. In some of these cases,
Speaker 1: your car does not float flaw depending on the current.
Speaker 1: Every car is different, everybody of water is different temperature,
Speaker 1: there's so many different factors what a vehicle does when
Speaker 1: it enters water that it's just a second's count. So seatbelt,
Speaker 1: window out, children are first. That's the acronym everybody needs
Speaker 1: to remember when they're trapped in an accident of any kind,
Speaker 1: which is seatbelt, window children first.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so good to know, because it's just I
Speaker 2: think that a lot of people every day that are
Speaker 2: just living their life and distracted by everything just aren't
Speaker 2: thinking about that kind of stuff. And then you know,
Speaker 2: a rescue as expert like yourself will always you would
Speaker 2: be fine in that situation. But like a regular person.
Speaker 1: I can't even say that because seconds count, you know,
Speaker 1: seconds count. So if I'm not able to, you know,
Speaker 1: I will. You know, I can fall victim to anybody can't.
Speaker 1: But being aware of this and taking the appropriate measures
Speaker 1: to mitigate risks, such as having a little ten dollars tool,
Speaker 1: is key, you know, because like you said, you don't
Speaker 1: think you live near water, but you cross over it.
Speaker 1: I've had cars clear those little concrete barrier walls on
Speaker 1: the outside of bridges and nobody ever even know guard reels.
Speaker 1: Accidents happen, cars go off road, the other person involved
Speaker 1: in the accident never stops because they're intoxicated or they're
Speaker 1: wanted or whatever factors. Reading they don't stay. Meanwhile, you know,
Speaker 1: nobody saw anything, you know, and there's no sign of
Speaker 1: any damage to a bridge or a guard reel. So
Speaker 1: it can happen. It can happen, absolutely to anybody in
Speaker 1: the biggest thing is it's not just water. It's not
Speaker 1: just water. The odds of you going into water and
Speaker 1: losing your life are so small. You have way more
Speaker 1: odds of losing your life in a just a simple
Speaker 1: car accident on the roadway without even going into water.
Speaker 1: You know, so it's it's knowing about simply that tool.
Speaker 1: And I'm not here to just sell a tool. It's
Speaker 1: not about that. But it really is critical. It really
Speaker 1: is critical. When you've seen as many when you've recovered
Speaker 1: as many bodies as I have out of vehicles, and
Speaker 1: you've done so in predicaments, you can tell that that
Speaker 1: person was trying to escape, they were trapped and literally
Speaker 1: a glass coffin sort of. I mean, it's important. It's
Speaker 1: important when you've cleaned up as many accidents as I
Speaker 1: have from from you know that are fatal that people
Speaker 1: should have lived in simply because they were trapped and
Speaker 1: died of smoke inhalation or fire. And it's important, it's
Speaker 1: really really important. One of the most dangerous things anybody
Speaker 1: listened into this or watching us will ever do is
Speaker 1: get behind the wheel of a car. It's extremely deadly.
Speaker 1: You know, we're so comfortable in our cars. We love them,
Speaker 1: no matter how fancy or much of a beater it is.
Speaker 1: We're so comfortable. It's our car. You know, we're listening
Speaker 1: to music. We all have our own little vibe in
Speaker 1: our car, and it's our own little bubble. That bubble
Speaker 1: gets popped, really really quickly, and it always happens when
Speaker 1: you least expect it. You know, death doesn't give notices
Speaker 1: until after the fact, you know, so there's no warning.
Speaker 1: So what are you supposed to do? You know, you're
Speaker 1: you got to just be aware and then also, you know,
Speaker 1: take the necessary steps to equip yourself to be prepared
Speaker 1: for an emergency. It's really the biggest thing that you
Speaker 1: can do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's smart because I wait, you just got me
Speaker 2: when you were saying, oh, what are you going to
Speaker 2: grab something in your glove compartment? And I think, like
Speaker 2: I have napkins in there, some extra straws and like
Speaker 2: phone chargers, So there's just nothing that would be able
Speaker 2: to even caught a seat out for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of other devices out
Speaker 1: there that claim that they can, you know, save your
Speaker 1: life and this and that, and you know it, the
Speaker 1: one we sells made right here in America, and it's
Speaker 1: regular regularly rigorously rigorously tested with really really high end
Speaker 1: you know certifications. It's any other tool is going to
Speaker 1: be made, you know, not in America. They're not certified
Speaker 1: like that. And it is really important that you have
Speaker 1: the appropriate tool and a lot of those other ones
Speaker 1: that don't even really work, and it works sometimes they
Speaker 1: cost so much and they're not going to save your life.
Speaker 1: Anything in a glob box is not going to save
Speaker 1: your life. You might as well put it in the trunk.
Speaker 2: Really, I have it's true because you think you don't
Speaker 2: think about your car getting smushed up in the process too,
Speaker 2: Like it's not like you normally sit in your car.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I put myself down and everything else. I put
Speaker 3: myself in a vehicle and flipped it up down with
Speaker 3: a forklift. And it was shocking how I was pinned
Speaker 3: to my seat by my seat belt. It was it
Speaker 3: was shocking to me, even though I knew I was
Speaker 3: being flipped over when I was upside down on my
Speaker 3: seat belt, the way I was pinned to my seat
Speaker 3: was Yeah, like I said, if it's not around your
Speaker 3: steering wheel and within arm's reach, and I'm not talking
Speaker 3: about leaning arms reach because you were pinned to your seat.
Speaker 3: If it's not within arm's reach, say your visor or
Speaker 3: your you know, dash steering wheel area, you're not going
Speaker 3: to be able to access it.
Speaker 1: In a lot of accidents, it's not going to be
Speaker 1: able to It's it's really well, I know what I'm buying.
Speaker 2: When this interview is done, you're gonna be like, you
Speaker 2: need to send me one of those right away. So
Speaker 2: all right, So we obviously know about this case that
Speaker 2: we just talked about this week, have you This isn't
Speaker 2: the first one that you've that you've helped out with.
Speaker 2: So you've done this before and gave closure to families
Speaker 2: before in different situations.
Speaker 1: Correct, Yeah, the dozens of times locally. We can talk
Speaker 1: about the other one that the Prosecutor's office just sort
Speaker 1: of unsealed yesterday, which was the case that I saw
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago in Richfield Park, New Jersey,
Speaker 1: right outside of Jersey City, West, New York. Charles Stanton
Speaker 1: Murphy vanished forty two years ago, And oh wow, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I found his vehicle just a couple of blocks from
Speaker 1: where he was last seen forty two years yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so mind blowing that you know, you're you're
Speaker 2: looking for your family member all this time and they've
Speaker 2: been especially this morning, Camden, like, these people have probably
Speaker 2: driven by that area of the river for years, hundreds
Speaker 2: of times just to think she's right there.
Speaker 1: Wow, I like your word for word what was said
Speaker 1: to me with family and friends. It's just beyond disbelief.
Speaker 1: And it's typical once we make a discuss because you
Speaker 1: start like wow, like how many times have I been here?
Speaker 1: You know, you know, I've even fished here and so forth,
Speaker 1: Like it's it's pretty mind blowing once you realize, wow,
Speaker 1: really all of this time, like right here obviously, you
Speaker 1: know we're talking about areas not a lot of people
Speaker 1: want to be in. Most of these waterways. We make
Speaker 1: discoveries and you know they're they're not really swam in,
Speaker 1: they're really you know, some of them are murky and his. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just would never think what's below the surface of
Speaker 1: a lot of waters in America but out of side,
Speaker 1: out of mind type of thing. What's below the surface
Speaker 1: you just don't know. And if it was pretty water,
Speaker 1: everything would be found already. So a lot of it
Speaker 1: has to do with you know, just yeah.
Speaker 2: So those other cars, So you said you found a
Speaker 2: totalist six cars, So those other ones are still under
Speaker 2: there and nobody has any idea what's why are they're there? Like,
Speaker 2: what's happening with that?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm I dove on all of the vehicles.
Speaker 2: It's not accessible.
Speaker 1: I dove on all of the vehicles, I assess them.
Speaker 1: We turn that data over to the prosecutor's office. They
Speaker 1: are handling it. They do have a really good plan
Speaker 1: in place to take care of that. I can't discuss
Speaker 1: that information just because it's still being investigated within the
Speaker 1: prosecutor's office, but they're taking the appropriate measures necessary to
Speaker 1: make it happen, though, I can tell you that they
Speaker 1: took it very serious.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Well, thanks so much for being here today.
Speaker 2: It was really great to talk to you. And I'm
Speaker 2: sure everyone that's listening now is just happy to have
Speaker 2: this information in case they're currently going through a situation
Speaker 2: like this, or god forbid they're ever in a situation
Speaker 2: like this. It's just good to know that there's someone
Speaker 2: out there advocating for you, because, I mean, the police
Speaker 2: are busy too, right, so once yea, once they're done
Speaker 2: working with your case and they're dead with leads, it's
Speaker 2: kind of like they need to move on to the
Speaker 2: next case too. So yeah, justify, Thanks so much for
Speaker 2: being here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're welcome, You're welcome. Thank you for having me,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, just to reiterate on that, you know,
Speaker 1: the justification they have to justify their user resources. Every
Speaker 1: department does in order to best serve the public interests,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people don't really understand that particular dynamic.
Speaker 1: So it's really nice for you know, our organization, we
Speaker 1: can come in and help families and if we have
Speaker 1: the resources in order to do searches, we don't have
Speaker 1: to justify it at all. We can come in and
Speaker 1: we can do what we do to help families. And
Speaker 1: if anybody's listening to this they have a case, they
Speaker 1: can reach out to us at info at United Search
Speaker 1: Corps dot org.
Speaker 2: And is do you have I mean, I know that
Speaker 2: you don't want the families to pay anything. Is there
Speaker 2: some kind of donation process there as well?
Speaker 1: Yes, so we yeah, we don't charge families. And on
Speaker 1: our website, United searchcore dot org, we have a donation link.
Speaker 1: You can go to the donation tab in the menu section,
Speaker 1: click on donate and that's exactly how we operate. One
Speaker 1: hundred percent of everything we do is strictly on donations.
Speaker 1: And it's the one dollar, it's the five dollars, it's
Speaker 1: every donation counts. Because it's extremely daunting the expenses of
Speaker 1: the logistics behind these type of searches. It's it's pretty
Speaker 1: daunting and we don't you know, we don't have government funding,
Speaker 1: not yet at least, so you know, if donations are
Speaker 1: absolutely critical to get for us helping families. It doesn't
Speaker 1: happen without it, so please consider it.
Speaker 2: That's that's so great, awesome, thanks so much again, thank
Speaker 2: you for listening to Mother nos Death. As a reminder,
Speaker 2: my training is as a pathologists assistant. I have a
Speaker 2: master's level education and specialize in anatomy and pathology education.
Speaker 2: I am not a doctor and I have not diagnosed
Speaker 2: or treated anyone dead or alive without the assistance of
Speaker 2: a licensed medical doctor. This show, my website, and social
Speaker 2: media accounts are designed to educate and inform people based
Speaker 2: on my experience working in pathology, so they can make
Speaker 2: healthier decisions regarding their life and well being. Always remember
Speaker 2: that science is changing every day and the opinions expressed
Speaker 2: in this episode are based on my knowledge of those
Speaker 2: subjects at the time of publication. If you are having
Speaker 2: a medical problem, have a medical question, or having a
Speaker 2: medical emergency, please contact your physician or visit an urgent
Speaker 2: care center, emergency room or hospital. Please rate, review, and
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