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How A Scuba Diver Youtuber Solved A 21-year-old Cold Case
On April 3, 2000, Jeremy Bechtel and Erin Foster took a car to a party. They were never heard from again until their car was found in a river more than 20 years later by a YouTuber who was fixated on cold cases.
In April 2000, two American teenagers named Jeremy Bechtel and Erin Foster, both from Sparta, Tennessee, vanished. Their bodies were found in Foster’s car in 2021 by YouTuber and volunteer cold-case investigator Jeremy Sides.
The Beginning
Both Jeremy Bechtel and Erin Foster are from Sparta, Tennessee. Bechtel contacted Ronnie Bechtel in the evening of April 3, 2000. Will, Foster’s brother, saw her that evening.
Nobody saw them alive after the evening of April 3, 2000, leading to rumors about their whereabouts and fabricated sighting reports. On the basis of allegations that Foster was residing and working in Pensacola, Florida, searches were carried out locally as well as there in the years 2005 and 2006.
Recovery
Jeremy Beau Sides is a civilian underwater diver from the United States who investigates missing persons and missing objects.
Jeremy Sides explored a lake near the area of the teenagers’ party.
Sides used sonar technology to find a car thirteen feet below the surface of the Calfkiller River, close to Highway 84, on November 30 evening.
On December 1, 2021, Sides returned to the vehicle he had seen in the river and went diving to film it. The license plate was identified as Foster’s Grand Am.
He contacted White County Sheriff Steve Page to report his discovery and confirm that it was Foster’s vehicle with two human remains lying inside. Foster and Bechtel’s bodies were later identified as those discovered in the vehicle after being lost for 21 years.
Police believe Foster lost control of her vehicle while travelling on Highway 84, which did not have a guardrail at the time.
He shared his findings in a 20-minute-long video titled “Exploring with Nug” on December 4, 2021. With almost 171,000 subscribers, the video reached Foster’s family and the police.
White County Sheriff Steve Page experienced a sense of defeat.
We went into wells, dug up areas, and utilized ground-penetrating equipment to seek for bodies,. The whole time, it was there under our noses… It’s heartbreaking to realize it was so simple, and that it was made that difficult by all the rumors and horror stories through the years. Steve Page declared
Authorities were initially told that Foster had fled to Pensacola, Florida, p police followed up again in 2005 and 2006, but both times the leads went nowhere. Investigators also looked into claims that the two had been murdered and their bodies had been dumped in an abandoned White County well.
Speculation continued to run wild, spawning rumors that the pair died in a botched drug deal. For decades, the Bechtel and Foster families replayed those final confusing moments in spring 2000, while their neighbors continued to gossip and unknowingly drive investigators off course by circulating misinformation.
On April 4, 2000, Ronnie Bechtel showed up to the address his son had given him. Meanwhile, Jeremy and Erin were nowhere to be located. One of the last people to see her alive was believed to be Will, her brother. On April 3, the two friends drove Will home after picking him up from an arcade and then went back to the gathering. The case was finally solved by Sides and his colleagues more than 20 years after they had vanished.
In the end, Jeremy Bechtel and Erin Foster’s case is still open. How the kids ended up driving into the river is a mystery. While the magnitude of this tragedy will be felt for a long time, the creative solution to this cold case serves as a reminder of how useful amateur sleuths can be.
“It’s like losing him all over again,” said Ronnie Bechtel. “It just shattered my heart again. We always kind of thought through the years that something happened, but I just didn’t know what.”
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