YouTube Inspires 'True Crime Junkies' to Buy Sonar-Equipped Boat and Solve Cold-Case Mysteries (tampabay.com) 35
Described as a "non profit volunteer search team" on its official site, Sunshine State Sonar "found more than 350 cars in canals, ponds and waterways across Florida" in just the last two years, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
It's owned by two half brothers — "weekend fishermen turned amateur underwater detectives." [T]he true-crime junkies dive into cold cases, searching for the disappeared. Sometimes, they choose the cases themselves, following threads online. Other times, law enforcement asks for their help.
They have discovered remains of 11 missing people inside cars, giving answers to relatives who had spent years agonizing. One family, who thought their mom had left them, learned that she had driven off the road. Relatives of a missing teacher suspected his girlfriend — then found out he had been submerged in a canal for three years. And the son of a young mother who thought she had been murdered was relieved when her death proved a watery accident...
"It all started with YouTube," [Mike] Sullivan says. "I kinda got obsessed." A couple of years ago, he got into bingeing Adventures with Purpose, videos of a volunteer dive team in Oregon that searches for missing people. "Florida has so much water!" he told his wife. "I really need to do this...."
He didn't know how to scuba dive. He'd never longed to float through crystal water or over schools of colorful fish. But he got certified so he could swim through muddy channels and search waterlogged crime scenes. He bought a shallow-draft boat and outboard motor, rigged it with the latest fish-finding technology: a Lowrance SideScan sonar, a DownScan imaging device and a Garmin LiveScope. The machines send sound waves pulsing through the water, then record them as they bounce back to create a blurry image on a monitor — like a sonogram... The equipment cost Sullivan $21,000. It took him a year to be able to interpret the images, to tell a rock from a Volkswagen.
Thanks to Slashdot reader Hectar for sharing the article.
It's owned by two half brothers — "weekend fishermen turned amateur underwater detectives." [T]he true-crime junkies dive into cold cases, searching for the disappeared. Sometimes, they choose the cases themselves, following threads online. Other times, law enforcement asks for their help.
They have discovered remains of 11 missing people inside cars, giving answers to relatives who had spent years agonizing. One family, who thought their mom had left them, learned that she had driven off the road. Relatives of a missing teacher suspected his girlfriend — then found out he had been submerged in a canal for three years. And the son of a young mother who thought she had been murdered was relieved when her death proved a watery accident...
"It all started with YouTube," [Mike] Sullivan says. "I kinda got obsessed." A couple of years ago, he got into bingeing Adventures with Purpose, videos of a volunteer dive team in Oregon that searches for missing people. "Florida has so much water!" he told his wife. "I really need to do this...."
He didn't know how to scuba dive. He'd never longed to float through crystal water or over schools of colorful fish. But he got certified so he could swim through muddy channels and search waterlogged crime scenes. He bought a shallow-draft boat and outboard motor, rigged it with the latest fish-finding technology: a Lowrance SideScan sonar, a DownScan imaging device and a Garmin LiveScope. The machines send sound waves pulsing through the water, then record them as they bounce back to create a blurry image on a monitor — like a sonogram... The equipment cost Sullivan $21,000. It took him a year to be able to interpret the images, to tell a rock from a Volkswagen.
Thanks to Slashdot reader Hectar for sharing the article.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Guess they have a higher priority on killing and assaulting people with their USD millions of military gear?
https://www.tampabay.com/news/... [tampabay.com]
https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
Are those really cops you've got there or subjugation troops?
And the US troops are apparently more trigger happy (and encouraged to be so) than some US veteran soldiers:
https://www.npr.org/2016/12/08... [npr.org]
Then there's the case of a white cop who did not shoot a black man holding a gun â" and it may have cost him his job.
In Afghanistan, the rules of engagement sometimes were stricter than use-of-force rules for civilian police in America. Erica Gaston, a human rights lawyer who studied the military's rules of engagement in Afghanistan, said that especially was true in the later years of the war.
"There was an emphasis on winning hearts and minds, and focusing more on stabilizing communities and protecting the civilian population," Gaston said.
In Weirton, Mader still had those wartime rules in mind. The Marines had taught him to wait for clear hostile intent before opening fire, something he didn't see from Williams.
"For me, it wasn't enough to kind of take someone's life because they're holding a gun that's not pointed at me," Mader said.
Re: (Score:2)
Does that same logic apply to volunteers who search for the missing as well?
Re: (Score:2)
Aren't you happy that people can now take $21k out of their own pocket, then volunteer their time to do what the cops were paid to do?
If two guys spending $21k and their own free time can find the remains of 11 people, how much more could the police department accomplish if any of these cops actually *cared* to help the public?
That "their own free time" isn't exactly cheap, you know. If you were to put actual police people on the job, that'd be two full-time positions spelunking in Florida's swamps rather than patrolling streets preventing, you know, actual crime. Plus the cost of training. So no, let the volunteers do it, and it's damn cool they do, but actual police resources shouldn't be put on that.
Re: Volunteer to do police's job (Score:2)
Fuck April Fools
Re: (Score:2)
People can fish for what they want to.
Yeah about that (Score:3)
And the son of a young mother who thought she had been murdered was relieved when her death proved a watery accident...
Uh huh. Because a criminal would never think to put the body in a car and then ditch it in a river. I suppose the Russian version would be being relived to find out that your son's death was just another tragic case of those faulty windows which seem to be so prevalent in that country.
Re: (Score:2)
case of those faulty windows which seem to be so prevalent in that country.
What's that about?
Re: (Score:2)
There have been a number of cases of "accidentally fell through a window" in Russia that most actually attribute to quite deliberate defenestration.
Re:Yeah about that (Score:5, Funny)
There have been a number of cases of "accidentally fell through a window" in Russia that most actually attribute to quite deliberate defenestration.
Nonsense. Why the Russian people are quite fastidious in nature and often expire with a flourish of bravado. Simply shooting oneself in the back of the head a few times, tying themselves up in a sack, and throwing themselves out of a window so as to not inconvenience the elevator riders is just the start. Couthness means proceeding to drive into a body of water and truly embody reticence.
Re: (Score:2)
Move to America. Your country sounds dangerous. Y'all be careful now, ya hear?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
If you went to English-speaking high school, your history teachers must have failed you by not teaching you about the (1618) Defenestration of Prague, which both led to the Thirty Years' War and -- apparently -- to the addition of that delightful word to the English language.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And the son of a young mother who thought she had been murdered was relieved when her death proved a watery accident...
Uh huh. Because a criminal would never think to put the body in a car and then ditch it in a river. I suppose the Russian version would be being relived to find out that your son's death was just another tragic case of those faulty windows which seem to be so prevalent in that country.
I didn't RTFA so I could be wrong; but I'm assuming that the bodies would be subject to forensic investigations which would determine cause of death in at least some of the cases. Of course, there's always the possibility of merely knocking a victim out and then sending the car into the water, but how many killers have that much foresight?
I wouldn't support Adventures With Purpose (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
A non-profit can be very profitable. Non-profit just means they are supposed to spend or invest everything and not build capital reserves.
Paying the CEO a ludicrous wage is a way of doing that.
I don't know if they are a non-profit, but the guy doing a Scrooge McDuck impression doesn't in itself prove that they aren't.
Re: (Score:3)
There are several groups doing the same thing. This article is about Sunshine State Sonar, not Adventures with a Purpose.
Good (Score:2)
If they solve heinous crimes, what's the problem?
Re: (Score:2)
No problem. This private police service just needs funding.
Maybe they can implement a subscription model, sort of like an insurance that will investigate crimes committed against their customers. Or maybe an auction model where people can bid for their specific missing person being looked for next. I'm sure there are lots of business models for pre-emptive protection.
I mean, it is in the public interest that such cases are investigated, so somebody has to do it.
Re: (Score:2)
I know I'm cynical, but (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm guessing they weren't successful pitching their show to a cable channel, so they're now putting it on YouTube and blasting out "news" announcements (aka advertisements)?
Re: (Score:3)
Cable channels won't run programming that make the police look incompetent. I watched a documentary about the Tylenol killer case and by all rights that guy should have been locked up for murdering someone years before. The cops and medical examiner botched the case so badly with general fuckups and sloppy work. The medical examiner listed the cause of death as "natural causes" for a man they found dismembered in his attic. After the killer was let go the police managed to pull a fingerprint from the rope a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Cable channels won't run programming that make the police look incompetent.
Don't worry, we don't need an entire channel devoted to such things [npr.org].
Hans Kristian Graebener = StoneToss
Re: (Score:1)
why are you doxxing StoneToss all over the place this morning? did he fuck your wife or something?
Re: (Score:2)
Gotta wonder who he was related to.