A medical technician and search-and-recovery hobbyist used his homemade sonar device to locate a car underwater that was carrying a man missing since 2015, a local outlet reported Tuesday.
Jason Souhrada’s sonar scanner mounted on a boogie board detected the Dodge Nitro containing human remains while searching in the Myrtle Beach area of the Grand Strand, in North Carolina, WPDE reported.
Both the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office and the Georgetown County Coroner’s Office reportedly confirmed the remains to be of Daniel Riggs, last seen Nov. 9, 2015. Souhrada also reportedly received help from a diver-friend Adam Brown, who leads an eponymous non-profit search-and-rescue team.
The recovered Dodge was a stolen car, according to the outlet.
Souhrada reportedly told WPDE he had researched Riggs’ cold case before the search. Souhrada and Brown reportedly found over 20 vehicles, with the one carrying Riggs’s remains being the third. (RELATED: Authorities Believe They Found Remains Of Missing College Student In Gnarly Place)
“Adam dove in and got the license plate and we contacted the police department,” Souhrada explained.
Souhrada, who works as an X-ray technician at Conway Medical Center in northeastern South Carolina, learned about sonar searching on YouTube and Facebook, WPDE separately reported. He then built his relatively inexpensive sonar device and took to underwater search and recovery.
“It’s basically a boogie board, a pelican case and a sonar unit, plus the remote control set up for the thrusters to make the device move,” Souhrada told the outlet.
The DIY device helped Souhrada find a vehicle that had gone missing since 1982, according to WPDE. Souhrada reportedly spotted the remains of the wrecked 1975 Camaro lying at the bottom of Jack’s Creek in North Carolina late 2023. Back in February, authorities reportedly recovered both the wreckage and three thigh bones, each belonging to David McMicken, 24; Michael Norman, 32 and William Clifton, 30.
The discovery of the Dodge with Riggs’ remains thus brought the number of families with cold cases helped by Souhrada to four, the outlet revealed.
“We don’t charge the families anything,” Souhrada told WPDE. He wanted to help police search areas their boats could not reach.
Souhrada reportedly counseled family members to “keep looking and keep making news stories about their missing loved ones” as that helps the work of private search teams such as his and Brown’s.
