Two Minnesota fishermen made an surprising discovery beneath the Mississippi River this week when sonar expertise led them to what authorities say could possibly be a break in a decades-old chilly case.
Brody Loch, one of many fishermen, advised CNN affiliate WCCO he noticed a automobile within the river utilizing his sonar machine final weekend. Three days afterward Wednesday, divers positioned the automobile and located human stays inside, Stearns County Sheriff Steve Soyka advised CNN.
“It was 100% luck, if my buddy wouldn’t have caught that walleye, we might have stored on floating down (the river) and by no means would have discovered it,” Loch advised WCCO.
Soyka stated he feared the automobile, a Sixties-era Buick, would possibly break aside if it was delivered to the floor, given how lengthy the automobile had been submerged. However when investigators pulled the Buick out of the river, “surprisingly, it got here up fairly intact,” he stated.
After working with an area towing firm to take away the automobile from the water, investigators then matched the automobile’s automobile identification quantity to Roy Benn, who went lacking in September 1967, based on a information launch from the sheriff’s workplace.
The native of Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, was final seen driving a 1963 metallic blue Buick Electra, based on a lacking individual bulletin from the Minnesota Bureau of Prison Apprehension.
“Based mostly on the human stays, gadgets discovered within the automobile, and verification of the VIN variety of the automobile, the (native) Sheriff’s Workplaces consider this to be Mr. Benn,” the Stearns County Sheriff’s Workplace stated within the launch.
Benn was reported to be “carrying a big sum of cash when he was final seen,” based on the bureau.
Roy George Benn was final heard from in September 1967, based on the Minnesota Bureau of Prison Apprehension. – WCCO
The seek for Benn continued months after his disappearance, and within the greater than 5 a long time after he was final seen.
Archives of the St. Cloud Every day Occasions reviewed by CNN make clear the person who disappeared and not using a hint virtually 60 years in the past after final being seen eating earlier that day at King’s Supper Membership north of Sartell, Minnesota.
Benn, 59 on the time of his disappearance, was a businessman and proprietor of the St. Cloud Equipment Restore Service whose spouse had died the yr earlier than, the St. Cloud Every day Occasions reported.
His brother, Walter Benn, labored with regulation enforcement officers following Roy’s disappearance, as investigators chased leads that by no means resolved the case.
Benton County Sheriff Troy Heck, whose division has been tasked with investigating Roy Benn’s lacking individuals case since his disappearance, advised CNN investigators from his workplace have gotten leads through the years – however none “panned out.”
Walter Benn ready his brother’s private possessions on the market at an public sale in 1968, based on archives of the St. Cloud Every day Occasions.
Roy Benn was declared legally lifeless in 1975, eight years after he went lacking, based on archives of the St. Cloud Every day Occasions.
The Benton County Sheriff’s Workplace is main the investigation for the case, and the stays discovered within the Buick have been despatched to a health worker’s workplace for examination.
Heck cautioned that “a number of the typical methods that our companions, the health worker’s workplace, would use to determine aren’t going to be actual efficient” due to the size of the time the physique has been underwater.
“We consider there’s sturdy indication that that is going to be Roy Benn’s automobile, and people are doubtless his stays,” Heck stated.
Heck added Roy Benn’s surviving subsequent of kin has been knowledgeable of the invention. The division had beforehand reached out to them to get familial DNA.
“We’re simply grateful that we could doubtless have lastly gotten the break that we would have liked to deliver closure to this household,” Heck stated.
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