Remains found in submerged car in New Jersey river identified as mom who vanished 14 years ago
The remains of a New Jersey mother who vanished 14 years ago were found submerged in a car in the Cooper River last week, said a nonprofit group that advocates for missing people.
Bernadine Gunner, then 52, disappeared July 7, 2010, having last been seen in Camden, Camden County police said.
The discovery was made last week by United Search Corps, a nonprofit group that advocates for missing people and conducts underwater searches.
A look into the murky depths of the Cooper River in Pennsauken on Wednesday using sonar and divers led United Search Corps founder Doug Bishop to discover multiple cars — including a Hyundai Elantra, the car Gunner was known to drive.
Inside, he found human remains.
The next day, the vehicle and the remains were recovered from the water.
"I was the diver. The moment that I saw it was a Hyundai Elantra, I pretty much knew that it was going to be the vehicle that we were looking for," Bishop said in an interview Tuesday. "I was able to identify her remains within the vehicle. We pretty much knew who we had.
"Once we got the vehicle out, we were able to make identification in numerous other fashions that corroborated our suspicions in connecting to the case," he added.
Bishop had learned about Gunner's case from supporters who raised her disappearance to the nonprofit group.
Her car was found just 45 minutes into the search of the Cooper River, less than a mile from Gunner's last known location in the 1300 block of Park Boulevard in Camden, Bishop said.
He described sharing the news with Gunner's family, who have been desperate for answers for over a decade, as a "relief."
“It’s devastating. It’s answers. There’s not really words in the human language that can accurately describe that. Losing your mother and never knowing, and then you go 14 years of not knowing, that’s a nightmare. It’s tragic," Bishop said.
Julia Young, one of Gunner's children, thanked Bishop for his help on Facebook.
“Thanks to Doug (United Search Corps) we have closure our family can now give my mom a proper burial,” she wrote.
She said that while her family wasn’t satisfied with local police’s handling of her mother’s case, all it took was "for a one band man to come here and dive into that water and discover my mom."
"We can’t thank him enough for what he has done. Almost 14 years with no answers and now we have them," Young wrote. Young did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bishop said he believes Gunner ended up in the water by an accident, noting that where her car was found is near a road on a bend with no obstructions preventing a car from entering the water.
Five other vehicles were found in the underwater search, and they are under investigation by the local prosecutor's office.
The Camden County Prosecutor’s Office said in a news release last week that human remains and multiple motor vehicles were located Thursday in the Cooper River, noting that three were removed, including the one holding human remains.
“The identity of the individual is pending DNA testing,” the prosecutor’s office said. As of Tuesday, those results were still pending.
Bishop stressed that raising awareness is key to solving cases — as with Gunner's disappearance.
“Public awareness is the No. 1 biggest tool in any missing persons case, whether it’s a cold case or an active case,” he said. "We specialize in advocating for families, as well as searching for missing loved ones, whether it’s on land or underwater. It’s just a big gray area within law enforcement that we’re trying to correct with our training."
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
