The Cold, Dark Water | Chapter 6
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November second, twenty twenty three, marked sixteen years to the day that Justin gains went missing. When Erica Watson told me about the recent lead he'd received regarding a particular cove at lake in year, I was determined to do everything I could to follow IT through to the end, because even if it's a long shot, someone has to at least try.

Recently, within the last a new year or so, I had a gentleman reach out to me and said he spoke was someone that used to date Martin wilky. And this guy said, he asked the girl, hey, what about Justin gains? And girl says, well, yeah, everyone knows they put them in the tour box and they moved him to this location. They gave me a specific location. I hadn't told anyone about IT for a very long time because don't feel like I could trust anyone.

Having people tell your information about her son is nothing new to era. So much of IT over the years has been completely unfounded era and her family have been through this so many times that it's become hard to get excited by tips anymore. It's frustrated to get their hopes up and then have them crushed again and again. This time, however, he received a specific location allegedly told from Martin wilky the man who was arrested for concealing her son's death in twenty fifteen. This time he had to tell someone just in case i've felt relieved.

I mean, for all this time, holding like what was to do? What was to do? I felt relieved telling someone about IT. I'd be horrible if in all this time, you don't your if that toll box is really where they say IT is. And you know, I could have answers, but we never looked for .

the lead pointed to a particular cove at lake lanier, the lake on which both andy pickens and Martin wilky's houseboat and where were told Justin was submerged after being placed in the large, tall box. At least that's one story. Another is that he had cement blocks tied to his neck and feet and was placed in the toolbox when he was removed from the lake to be transported to a well, if you're to believe either story.

But so much of this case revolves around this particular body of water, the massive pictures. K lake is a retreat for locals from the atlantic summer heat. Nearly seven hundred miles of shoreline, spread over sixty nine square miles, provides beaches and swimming spots, boating and fishing at same shorelines, takes in and out of forest land and fields, and buts up to private properties.

Where were multimillion dollar homes. When I discuss the lead with mike rising, he wasn't optimistic at all. He felt he had other leads that were more promising to .

focus on that story. I don't think that's even a theory. They took him and decided to come over this area. And that's where we have the shotgun of stories of where where he's been buried over the years. I got my own level where I feel like this is worth dig up and .

where you draw that things like this is I.

I want to go conspired IT pointed out to me right now, the typical leads are coming from x girl. Friends and friends are in jail or trying to cut a deal and they'll hear the story. And we've had leads come in since I started the process. And most for the most part, i'm going, uh, okay, now this one doesn't these are look like I call him look, at least that does not mean i'm not going to cover, but i'm not going to go running .

out at my request, might put in a call a all county, georgia, where the jurisdiction of this part of the lake resides. But they apparently had no interest in following this lead because he never heard back from them. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of coves, big and small, on lake linear. That is to say, if you don't have some idea of exactly where you're going to be looking for something in the water, don't even even bother. There is just too much area to cover, but that's the one thing we have going for us an exact area to search.

From wavelan, i'm shan kite, and this is drowning creek.

So in one thousand nine hundred ninety six of alan ahead, the olympics .

hair right during the ninety six summer olympics, lake iner hosted the rowing canoe and kayak vents.

The person told us that Martin wilkie told the girl, or the girl said that where they had the bleachers set up for viewing across from the batter there is a cove. The tool box was put in that cove across from the bleachers courts. We here stuff all the time.

Now we have google up my husband's looking. We find the road club. We were able to locate bleachers and actually across for IT is definitely a cove.

I think part of the reason Erica kept this information to self for as long SHE did was because he just didn't know that was real or not. But also, I think he was wondering in if anyone even Carried enough anymore to go looking. I talked with my producer, Jason, about what i'd learned, and we discuss our options and ultimately what to do with this lead.

Wait, have the police they have they not doing a dive? Or if we asked them to do a dive, we get on a boat time or what's the deal?

No one's ever been out there. I think that they're not too keen on this lead for whatever reason. They just feel like they have more urgent leads.

I think over the over time, there has just been so many leads about lake lane and they've ve all come up empty that they're almost feeling like maybe that's not what happened. But you know, how do you how do we not go and see if this is real? What do we do with this information?

The bad news is like the year is massive. Good news is actually having a landmark like the olympic park that should be really easy for us to find.

We're going to need somebody to dive because, I mean, the police are going to use their dive team for this. apparently.

I think we should just find someone and and figure that out. We need to do at ourselves. That's what we need to do.

I went back to Erica to get as much information about this leaders I could. I wanted to know who the man was that gave her this tip through facebook.

The guide told me this, I want to say you to have spanned names. So I go to my messages and find that at. Please try to.

Okay, so this guy isn't my friend anymore, but I have a phone number form high. This is fully pay. F E, L, I, P, E, I don't know what's last name, so I have to find him.

That's the thing, right? He gave me a phone number back, one of seven, seven, o eight, seven, zero, eight, two. I know I, he had a daughter. I mean, I remember he, he looks, you know like a pretty logic guy from when I researched from my facebook.

I asked for anything else you could remember about him.

He lived in georgia. I believe he had a daughter and much was married because he had dark care, and he was a real then. He had little meat in his face.

Eric eventually came up with the last name for phillippa that he was pretty sure was right, as the account he used to contact her with no longer existed. I tried the phone number he had left in IT belonged to someone else. Now I looked for phillippe for days.

But honestly, have you ever tried searching for someone with a common hesba ic name online? It's really difficult. I found dozens of philly bes and called every number with no luck. So with the dead in there, who is the woman that dated Martin wilky, where this lead originated from? Do you remember her name by chance?

I know that election of that name right now.

Another bus. But there was one person of interest in this case that i'd been tracking for a while now, a man whose named we've heard many times. A man we've heard was present the night Justin was allegedly killed and who told took some part in hiding or disposing of Justin's body.

Martin wilky, I wanted to ask him about all i've heard so far and see if he could or would tell me anything about the cove on a linear, if there's one person who could elaborate on this information. It's Martin wilke, another long shot, I know, but they want, they are right. IT doesn't have to ask. I finally reached him on the phone, and I kind of went Better than I thought I would.

Only thing I can tell you is out. I don't wish to talk to anyone about IT. I've told everybody that matters to close and I don't anna, get back into IT again because that I don't know anything you .

but thank you very much when I just wanted to say that not alright. After running up against brick walls and dead s trying to speak with the people, this new information came from my team, and I decided to give IT to go ourselves. We had at least try, but only if eric has supported the idea.

You know what? I was love for you too, because i've said on the information for a long time, I was nothing. I just I don't feel like I have that close connection with going on at county anymore.

That was all the confirmation I needed Jason and I checkups and planned out our search the best we could with the information we had. You know, just looking at this map, you know, i'm looking there is the lake near olympic park, just like gericht told me. There the bleachers. You can see these massive concrete bleachers and directly across our two coves.

one, one big cove and one kind .

of or one on where movies. There's not really a lot there. There's a pretty big wooded area.

After looking at maps, we'd now seen for ourselves that the cove is there, just as eric had described. But searching this area isn't as easy as that sounds. Lakely near is no joke. IT can be nearly impossible to see under water. And there's decades worth of junk and debris on the lake floor, which makes IT not only difficult to search, but also really dangerous.

I ve heard stories of, you know bank safes to cars. I mean, this is not necessarily a lake that you can just kind of walk around .

on the bottom. We to I don't think with all the rain that we've had, I don't think you're going to see anything in that water. The biggest chAllenge we would likely face is the visibility, which IT gives way to other dangers in the water.

When lagnier was made in the one hundred and fifties, they actually flooded in entire town. In the surrounding foreign land, there are still houses and storefronts completely intact at the bottom of the lake. So I reached out to a few boat rental companies and found a few divers who can help us out what's top.

So I ve got a book, and I made contact with some guys who are diverse. They have a youtube channel here in georgia. They have had success in finding cars, and they unfortunately found human remains in lakes and level across the country.

So they've agreed to help us out and get out in the lake with us. They've got cold water dive gear. They've got so AR.

They've got to underwater cameras. We've got the whole works, and they had actually heard about Justin gains this case. Well, so now I was official. We had divers, we had a boat, and we would search the code for any sign of Justin gains. And just saying that out loud brought to the surface of your emotions.

I hadn't really expected the whole idea of, you know we're talking about this and you get caught up in the planning of IT in in the lead in the story of Justin in this case in in IT like makes you stop for a minute and think, what if we do find him? I mean, we've ready for that. I don't .

really know how I feel. I think IT is the right thing for us to do. We've to kind of drop our fear of all this stuff in the meantime and got to do what's right for the family.

You know you like, how do we not go for IT?

Actually glad we're doing this. I think the fact that this comes from eric and really matters of the family and just all of that makes to me, whatever anyone thinks, that this is a credible leader. Not I just think when something comes to the family like that, you just got to do IT no matter what IT is. If we fail, we fail, but we at least given them peace of mind. This is something that pink across off their list and and not hold out hope for.

IT was now mid december in the serene fall colors that slowly wilted and faded to shades of Brown and grey. The morning we arrived at lake land year was the coldest day of the year so far in a thick, heavy fog rolled across the surface of the water, providing an area backdrop for an already solemn occasion. My team and I had rented a boat, hired a captain and set out from the port royal marine a.

The company ed, by Jason, our audio tech leo and our camera Operator, jane, we began the freezing thirty minute boat ride to the cove. Eric, understand we chose not to be present within minutes. After setting out, our hands and faces were already known from the coal. We were meeting up with diverse adam Brown and jeremy sides, two men who've made a living finding things and people lost to the water.

I guess the most professional way to put IT is we run a nonprofit that focuses on searching for missing people and cleaning up the waterways. Like we're moving cars from the bricks. We find lots cars more than we do missing people.

So we remove the cars in the process, and we document all of the all of our recoveries and in all of our searches on a numerous social media channels, essentially how we fend, because we don't charge the family. We do not charge anybody. We do everything free charge.

It's just a place for somebody to feel like they they they're not they've lost all hope so. So there's I get a lots of mesage everyday that people you know like the police are not doing anything. They don't care or they have used up all the resources and they are given up.

Jimmy and adam use the youtube channels adam Brown adventures and expLoring with nog to fund their searches.

And they've paid off. Found three people on my own, two teenagers, and went missing for twenty years. And they ended up shown up there was in their car in a river in town that they were were missing in. And what is ten foot deep?

Most of the cases we target our people missing in vehicles because it's so much easier to find a car underwater. The majority of missing person cases are they don't involve vehicles, so they don't get solved this easy since, you know, we have a target, we have something to look for, like this one. There is a box. We have something we can look for. There was just the body is so much difficult.

I'd felt jeremy and adam in on what I was we were doing through email and over a few phone calls, and they were already familiar with Justin's .

case and still early first. I think you're still hear stories all around about me. Get a witnessing for wild ills.

I gave them a few additional details I had. And as we thought, our biggest issue would be .

the visibility. This is like the ability like .

we see anything will and hold, we just find to be able to feel that we on't be able to see anything basically .

going to be a lot of searching, and I might just be all searching, but we don't know until you get here to start looking.

As you guys get out here, you're actually.

you're just .

cruising back jermy. Adam in myself began campuses, the area in and around the cove, using sooner to see if any anomalies stood out, particularly anything that resembled a large tool x. The cover focusing on sits directly across the lake from the large concrete bleachers built for the olympic spectators and is secluded with trick cover on three sides.

Honestly, IT is good at places any to hide evidence. The average depth of lake lyres, about sixty feet, with the deepest point being one hundred and sixty feet at the buf. Her damn.

But from the story i've heard, Justin's body was moved from the lake when the level dropped several feet because IT became visible. So I knew if that story was true, he would have had to have ve been near the shoreline. So that's where we concentrated our search.

First photo ge of the scanning, a lot of repetitive looking, right? So until we actually see signal, this is a the right side and left side on this view. So that's just shoot out much.

You're looking down straight above IT yeah and this ones side view. So if there was like, you know a car, sit here you will see the side view of a car. We also have the lives in which is this, which you can see alive, image you can like turn IT and good, like the three d looking shape, what you like to see something. So we were going to run that over of these things.

So this is the bottom that .

we're looking at to the left. And tty flat sand, not really. I got to see something little.

little stand out. After several hours spent the freezing cold searching the mary waters, gliding lazily across the surface in a grid like pattern. Adam alert s that he spotted something on the sonar near the mouth of the cove. That looks .

square more about .

beauty, trying to leave out the if it's a block for a dog. And so like that, there's a few by the dogs that we're going to we're going to run the live can and try get a Better image of IT.

Try try with the magnet even though if I was to guess, I would say it's going to be an allusion box, but if you're got lucky in steel, which tait with a magnet and then we follow rope down to IT and cigarettes.

we have an acre on here too. We, the anchor sit next to IT. Yeah, we can.

We can bounce. The anchor can feel IT in the rope was drop anchor right there. They have a guide rope. Take us right to IT. I was die down and see if that feels like a box pride to tie the rope to IT go there.

You couldn't tell what the shape was exactly, and the water was cloudy from recent heavy rains, so you could see nothing from the surface. Jermy volunteer to put on his dive gear and take a closer look.

They have got down on. The water was cold.

and where we SAT in the cove was hidden from the sun by the trees. By now the fog had burned off, but a steady breeze was blowing, and the cold was biting at our fingers and faces again. Jermy stripped down to his underwear and slipped into his thick cold water dives, who, after several checks to make sure the equipment was working, including a comms units, we could communicate with him while he was under water. He slipped in in the lake.

Soon after, his heads sank, beef the surface, and he was gone. Everything was quiet, but the home of the trolling motor's keeping the boats in place, in the sound of a few bubbles boiling to the surface, the water was calm and still. And IT was at this very moment that IT hit us off. We could be more minutes away from finding just in gains a sauber feeling washed over us but IT seemed believe as quickly as IT came as after several minutes we've lost .

contact with german 李瑞 美。 Do you read me? garby.

After several minutes of not being able to communicate with jeremy while he was underwater investigating the anomaly detected with sonar, the group became increasingly concerned. Even in reasonably shallow water, lake linear has any number of obstacles on the bottom to get snagged on and held down, like tree branches and discarded metal objects.

Are you see anything down there over?

Adam attempted to get an update from jeremy to see if he had found anything of venture under water.

Well.

we looked for any signs of movement from the surface. Adam tried repeatedly to make contact. Each time, there was no .

response.

We all waited for any kind of response from gerri, and again, nothing.

We waited and .

waited now becoming concerned for germany safety.

Do you read my coffee?

Suddenly jeremy emerges from the water.

Neo visibility .

called found .

the .

target is lying .

there next to trees up.

Thankfully, Jimmy was fine. IT was the comm unit that had now functioned. The tension that was building minutes before lifted, and we wanted to hear what he foundling of the surface. A flood of thoughts rushed over me.

Could this really be the moment after sixteen years that Justin gains was found? If so, could forensic testing be done to determine exactly what happened to him and lead us to his killer? There was a lot writing on what we were about to hear.

Second, I deflated and went down. IT was just Brown. You could see the sun, so was, he was a pitch of black. But once I started drop and down and just darker and dark, and I could still see the sunlight, but I was just like a dark Brown, could literally couldn't see .

my hand in front of my face.

I found the anchor, and then I just, I just started going around in a circle. I hold on the anchor. And then eventually I kicked that targeted with my foot, and I swam over tweet and figured out IT was a plastic mirror st. By feeling on IT he was flimby. The top was open.

An empty plastic barrel. Sadly, another dead end. The whole group was disappointed because this was the only foreign object of interest we really saw. After hours of searching, the lake floor in this area was surprisingly clean. I suddenly have the same feeling that I imagine investigators like coral sims and mike rising must have had for years after coming up with no results from their searches, feeling like you could be so close only to be disappointed again and again. But also, a pretty profound thought hit me at this very moment too, something that would make me question what I was even doing at this lake in the first place.

You know, it's like A. Part of you wants to find Justin and find what we came for. You know, in the other part he was, you know, if if you actually did find him down, you know, I mean, like you really wanna be witnessed to that, I mean, it's just got IT such a big lake.

I mean, you you could do this forever. And I mean, IT really is a middle in the haystack. IT is a needle in a very large hay stack. And with near zero visibility underwater, the odds were stacked even more against us. As we discussed, germy and adam offered to come back out, do another search when the conditions were Better, and offer we enthusiastically .

took them up on spend days dall. Not necessarily today, just because it's it's so horrible. yeah.

Our search was done for now, and I had to give era the news that we didn't find Justin. If that's good news er or not, I don't know.

I wanted, thank you, give me tales and for you put all this and go into this and what you're going. It's amazing. I am going to cry. I thank you so much.

oh.

my. I mean that I don't expect anything ever you know but just to know that you're offered putting that much effort and you know dig in really deep began and I appreciate IT. I think not .

finding Justin was both the relief and a disappointment for her. It's this mixed bag of emotions that she's Carried with her for almost two decades. But I know she's just thankful to know that someone still cares.

I feel Better that I know sounds actually went out there and look so I mean, that makes me feel Better, but I mean, I would never say no. But thank you. Now I work chat to take another thing when it's clear, a warm or understand the water spacing. Right now.

maybe there is something to the stories and leads pointing to lake in here. Maybe not, but just because we came up empty hand at this time doesn't mean i'm at all dissuaded. If anything, i'm more determined than ever to find the truth of what happened to just in gains. And I feel like each new person I come in contact with leads me a little closer to that truth.

I have a really good girl friend of mine. The father of her child had brought him for questioning over this, and he felt his light .

detector test. He was worried .

sick that something was onna happen. Him SHE keep asking him, well, what did you do? Tell me, what did you do? Did you have something to do with this? And he would never tell her. I know he did fill his lighter techne test asking about if he had anything to do .

with Justin's death.

and he failed. And that's not .

public knowledge.

Who do you hear that from his baby? mommy?

You able to tell me his name?

And 我 有。

Drowning creek is an original production of wavelan I rote and created a series and the original score executive producers Jason hook, associate producers little cope, sound engineering by shame, freeman, special thanks to a Wilson and her family. If you have any leads on this case, please contact me at info at shon cope dot com, and if you love the series, please leave with you and tell your friends follow wavelan on instagram at wavelan media for more on this series and upcoming new shows, and you can also find me on social media at Shawn cape official or at scope that com. As always, thanks for listening.