The Cold, Dark Water | Chapter 6

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Mike Rising, the lead investigator, pointed out to me, right now, the typical leads are coming from ex-girlfriends and friends that are in jail, that are 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, okay, no, this one doesn't. These are look-alike, I call them look-alike leads. That does not mean I'm not going to cover them, but I'm not going to go running.

out. At my request, Mike put in a call to Hall 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 him. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of coves, big and small, on Lake Lanier. 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 bother. There's just too much area to cover.

So in 1996, you know, Atlanta had the Olympics here, right? During the 96 Summer Olympics,

Lake Lanier hosted the rowing, canoe, and kayak events. The person told us that Martin Wilkie.

told the girl, or the girl said, that where they had the bleacher set up for viewing, across from the bleachers, there is a cove. The toolbox was put in that cove across from the bleachers. Of course, we hear stuff all the time. Now we have Google, so my husband's looking, we find the row club. We were able to locate bleachers, and directly across from it is definitely a cove.

I think part of the reason Erica kept this information to herself for as long as she did was because she just didn't know if it was real or not. But also, I think she was wondering if anyone even cared enough anymore to go looking. I talked with my producer, Jason, about what I'd learned, and we discussed our options. And, ultimately, what to do with this lead.

Wait, have the police, are they not doing a dive, or have we asked them to do a dive? Could we get on a boat with them, 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 time, there's just been so many leads about Lake Lanier, and they've all come up empty, that they're almost feeling like maybe that's not what happened. But how do we not go and see if this is real?

The bad news is Lake Lanier is massive. The 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 the police aren't going to use their dive team for.

this, apparently. I think we should just find someone, and figure it out. We need to do it ourselves, that's what we need to do.

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

The guy that told me this? I want to say it's a Hispanic name, so I'm going to go to my messages and find it. At least try to. This guy isn't my friend anymore, but I have a phone number for him. Hi, this is Felipe, F-E-L-I-P-E.

I asked for anything else she could remember about him.

He lived in Georgia. I believe he had a daughter, I'm not sure if she was married. Of course, he had dark hair. He wasn't real thin. He had a little meat in his face.

Erica eventually came up with a last name for Felipe that she 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, and it belonged to someone else now.

I have no recollection of that name right now.

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

Only thing I can tell you is I don't wish to talk to anyone about it. I've told everybody that matters, including law enforcement, that I had nothing to do with any of that, and I don't want to get back into it again because I don't know anything,

but thank you very much. Well, and I just wanted to say that I'm not... All right.

but only if Erica supported the idea. You know what? I would love for you to, because I've sat on the information for a long time. Maybe it wasn't the best idea. I just, I don't feel like I have that close connection with Gwinnett County anymore.

And that was all the confirmation I needed. Jason and I checked maps and planned out our search the best we could with the information we had. You know, and just looking at this map, you know, I'm looking, there's the Lake Lanier Olympic Park, just like Erica told me. There are the bleachers. You can see these massive concrete bleachers and directly across are two coves, one big cove and one kind of smaller one.

but also really dangerous. I've heard stories of, you know, bank safes to cars to, I mean, this is not necessarily a lake that you can just kind of walk around on the bottom.

We have to get somebody that's got sonar equipment, because 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 gives way to other dangers in the water. When Lake Lanier was made in the 1950s, they actually flooded an entire town. in the surrounding farmland. There are still houses and storefronts completely intact at the bottom of the lake.

I don't really know how I feel, but I think it is the right thing for us to do. We've got to kind of drop our fear of all this stuff in the meantime. And we've got to do what's right for the family, you know?

Like, how do we not go for it?

I'm actually glad we're doing this. You know, I think the fact that this comes from Erica and really matters to the family and just all of that makes, to me, whatever anyone thinks of this as a credible lead or not. I just think, when something comes to the family like you've just got to do it, no matter what it is. If we fail, we fail, but we've at least given them peace of mind that this is something that they could cross off their list and not hold out hope for.

It was now mid-December and the serene fall colors had slowly wilted and faded to shades of brown and gray. The morning we arrived at Lake Lanier was the coldest day of the year so far, and a thick, heavy fog rolled across the surface of the water, providing an eerie backdrop for an already solemn occasion. My team and I had rented a boat, hired a captain, and set out from the Port Royal Marina. Accompanied by Jason, our audio tech Leo, and our camera operator, Jan, we began the freezing 30-minute boat ride to the cove. Erica understandably chose not to be present.

I guess the most professional way to put it is. we run a non-profit that focuses on searching for missing people and cleaning up the waterways, like removing cars from the river, because we find lots of cars more than we do missing people. So we remove the cars in the process and we document all of our recoveries and all of our searches on numerous social media channels. That's essentially how we fund it, because we don't charge the family, we don't charge anybody, we do everything free of charge.

Jeremy and Adam use their YouTube channels Adam Brown Adventures and Exploring with Nug to fund their searches, and they've paid off.

You know, I've found three people on my own, two teenagers that went missing for 20 years, and they ended up showing up, it was in their car in a river in town that they went missing in, and the water's 10 foot deep.

Most of the cases we target are 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 as easy. Since, you know, we have a target, we have something to look for, like this one, you know, there's a box, we have something we can look for. If it was just a body, it's so much more difficult.

I'd fill Jeremy and Adam in on what it was we were doing through email and over a few phone calls, and they were already familiar with Justin's case.

It's still really fresh, I think they, you'll still hear stories all around about, you know, the kid went missing from Wild Hills.

I gave them the few additional details I had, and, as we had thought, our biggest issue would be the visibility.

This is like two inch visibility, you might be able to see like this close.

If we see anything, we'll dive it, and hopefully just find it and be able to feel it, but we won't be able to see anything.

Right, it's basically going to be a lot of searching, and it might just be all searching, but we don't know until we get out here and start looking.

As you guys get out here, you're just actually, you're just going to be cruising back and forth.

Jeremy, Adam, and myself began canvassing the area in and around the cove using sonar to see if any anomalies stood out, particularly anything that resembled a large toolbox. The cove we're focusing on sits directly across the lake from the large concrete bleachers built for the Olympic spectators, and is secluded with tree cover on three sides. Honestly, it's as good a place as any to hide evidence. The average depth of Lake Lanier is about 60 feet, with the deepest point being 160 feet at the Beaufort Dam. 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 were true, he would have had to have been near the shoreline.

Yeah, the footage of the scanning is going to be a lot of repetitive looking footage, so until we actually see a signal.

So this is the bottom that we're looking at out to the left.

That's how the fish are swimming. It's pretty clean, so it's pretty. just flat and sand. It's not really, like. once you see something, it'll stand out.

After several hours spent in the freezing cold, searching the murky waters, gliding lazily across the surface in a grid-like pattern, Adam alerts us that he's spotted something on the sonar. near the mouth of the cove. We're seeing something that looks square.

We're trying to weave out the, if it's a block for a dock and stuff like that. There's a few that aren't by the docks that we're kind of seeing. We're going to run the live scan and try to get a better image of it.

We'll probably try with a magnet, even though, if I was to guess, I would say it's going to be an aluminum box, but if we got lucky, it's steel. We just hit it with a magnet, and then we just follow the rope down to it, and see what it is.

We have an anchor on here too. We can just hit the anchor and sit next to it.

Yeah, we can bounce the anchor and just, you can feel it in the rope, and we'll just drop the anchor right there, and then we'll have a guide rope. take us right to it. And then I'll just dive down and see what it is, and if it feels like a box, I'll probably just tie the rope to it and go from 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. Jeremy volunteered to put on his dive gear, and take a closer look.

There's something right there, we'll probably have to drop down on it,

and see what that is.

Yes. 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. Jeremy stripped down to his underwear, and slipped into his thick, cold water dive suit. After several checks to make sure the equipment was working, including a comms unit, so we could communicate with him while he was underwater, he slipped into the lake.

Do you read me?

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 Lanier has any number of obstacles on the bottom to get snagged on and held down, like tree branches and discarded metal objects. Are you seeing anything down there? It's over.

Can you hear me? Over.

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

Do you read me?

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

Can you hear me?

Over.

We waited and waited, now becoming concerned for Jeremy's safety.

Do you read me?

Copy.

Suddenly, Jeremy emerges from the water.

Zero visibility.

Cold.

Found the target, just laying there next to a tree stump.

Thankfully, Jeremy was fine. It was the comms unit that had malfunctioned. The tension that was building minutes before lifted, and we waited to hear what he'd found below the surface. A flood of thoughts rushed over me. Could this really be the moment, after 16 years, that Justin Gaines was found?

The second I deflated and went down, it was just brown. You could see the sun, so it wasn't pitch black, but once I started dropping down, it was just darker and darker. I could still see the sunlight, but it was just like a dark brown. Literally couldn't see my hand in front of my face.

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.

We could spend days out here doing that. I mean, I'm all for it. Not necessarily today, just because it's so horrible.

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

Well, I want to thank you. You've gave me chills. And for you to put all this and go into this and what you're doing, it's amazing. I'm going to cry. I thank you so much, for real.

I mean, I promise.

Oh, my gosh.

I think not finding Justin was both a 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 someone's actually went out there and looked. So, I mean, that makes me feel better. But I mean, I would never say no if I think, you know, it's worth a shot to take another thing when it's clear or warmer. I understand the water is freezing right now.

Maybe there is something to the stories and leads pointing to Lake Lanier. Maybe not. But just because we came up empty-handed 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 Justin Gaines. And I feel like each new person I come in contact with leads me a little closer to that truth.

And he failed. And that's not public knowledge.

Who'd you hear that from?

His baby mama.

Are you able to tell me his name?

Leon.

Drowning Creek is an original production of Waveland. I wrote and created the series and the original score. Executive producer is Jason Hoke. Associate producer is Leo Culp. Sound engineering by Shane Freeman.

you.