25 Years Later: Murder Conviction with No Body - Cold Case Investigation

William Alvin Hamilton like the present day cases he was missing for a short time before presumed dead without ever finding his remains this man Rodney Richardson is serving two life sentences for the crime he thought he would get away with because he did away with Hamilton's body people lie uh Witnesses lie families lie suspects lie uh forensic evidence does not lie [Music] today we're back in Augusta Georgia searching for William Al Hamilton he was murdered back in the late '90s his body and his car an 87 Ford Tempo was never recovered and we've searched for him several times I'm out with exploring with nug here today I'm also out with nug and Noggin joining us and we made our way to Augusta here to continue the search because we recently got a tip from a local uh dive team here in Augusta after pulling another vehicle out on related that the area behind the airport may be where the missing car and body is and as you can see there was a boat ramp and we previously located two vehicles that we never do Dove on everything about him being missing was out of character for his life Al Hamilton lived and worked in Augusta the 46-year-old was known to be a nice Man Who Loved to work on cars at night he worked at the Disco Tech Lounge which is exactly where he was last seen on the night of August 14th 1998 leaving the business in his 1987 great Ford Tempo him being gone and his car being gone and his family and social network having had no contact with him since he was last seen leaving work um was suspicious this is a little bit different case because it is actually a murder case and uh what can you tell me a little bit about this well it's it's a little different because see we got the like the The Story Goes he he got off work uh he went home uh suspectedly you know he disappeared uh his house was um you know set on fire and the cop showed up uh or the fire department showed up put it out and uh they discovered that this was a crime scene it was a murder scene and apparently they had overwhelming evidence to find out who did it convict the guy and send him to prison with ever finding the body Hamilton was killed in his home and Richardson set it on fire to cover it up but instead of getting away with it he locked his own jail cell with a blaze the Heat and the fire actually seared the blood stains and the blood spatter uh onto the drywall and the so then covered it and preserved it perfectly like what we're doing is essentially we're trying to find William to bring closure to the family cuz they know who did it but they don't have anybody to be they never found the body they never had found that's the definitive proof you know the body and the car we've done a lot of searching Around Augusta we found and pulled out Vehicles here and we but we do know today two vehicles that we've never dove on so we're out today going to be searching with our search boat we got sonar with exploring with nug we got Nugget Noggin today joining us we're going to be doing some diving on these two vehicles and hopefully we can get some answers to his family and find out where he is that we're on the boat making our way up there's uh I guess we're going to dive the the upper car first and look at look at the look at the edge of the water over here how high these walls are it's kind of an interesting yeah the erosion is kind of interesting there's like big drop offs sort of and there's a lot of whirlpools this whole area gets really really shallow on one side and then this one car is kind of in the uh in the middle of the Rapids sort of Rushing Water up here so might be a little interesting so we are aware of these two vehicles there may end up being more out here and we'll search those if we can find any more um but the one we're looking for is I guess from the late '90s so it's going to have some age to it it should show up really well on the sonar cuz it'll have more growth can't tell those two things there's a couple things around here that old maybe old piles don't scream car to me though but it should be right up here that's the car yeah it's upside down yeah that's the car okay yeah that's over it you can see the shadow let me get a I'm trying to get a better recording of this but yeah that's an upside down car and you can see the tires shadow kind of looks funky current's going throw reverse back we just located that first car going try to get you guys a better image here on the screen but it's definitely upside down assuming it's a car it looks kind of small right you say uh it looks like a car I can tell you what kind though I mean yeah could be a dang limousine even a pile of rocks yeah I mean there's there's a big pile of rocks right here um I'm really curious on what this thing is still on this side oh the car's on that side this little blog right here but the Shadows giving it away cuz it's a tire and a tire so it's upset now good imagination it's really close I'm kind of surprised it's definitely something big that's something big right there it'll probably be pretty good visibility yeah we'll see what we're doing for the car great visibility and the current is moving right where the car is we're used to diving in 5 in of visibility y'all dark I wonder what a car look like in that tan corner be weird diving a car in that be a little spooky yeah this magnet should stick pretty easily to the car especially since it's upside down and then just drops straight down to it cuz sometimes you know if you dive blind yep you could miss it by an inch inch or a mile you're right all right so we're pretty much just went over it that's the car you can see right there up all right I'm going I'll pull it up foot the current should carry us should carry right on it that big line right there is tell right on top of the car we're going so slow stretching it out we just went oh this this is streak right here is the car trans is back here so he should bump into it it kind of takes a few tries yeah could do the live scope can get a better image of it after I mess with it it looks so cool though I think you missed it I think I felt the bump but it went around at something a bump magnet fishing for a car it still shows you how hard it is imagine trying to find like a cannonball you if you can miss a car you can miss something small oh yeah sure there's a little slack on it but what it's little slack on the Rope but youe you're Slack should be fine turn a little more as long as you got it attached to the bag the Rope ain't going to come out yeah but you don't have the just jump in and and look and see what type of car it is and if it has a license plate about it you know the number no I don't know the plate but I know if it's a Ford Tempo gray Tempo I don't know what that looks like old 80s boxing old box and ugly for Tempo see if it's our guy yeah I mean I think this one would be easy to miss a lot of people don't have better sonars you know going through here it's a weird place for car upside down so if you not if you don't know what you're looking for it just looks like a pile of crap like I don't know how high the water would have been but you'd have to send it I mean there's a there's an old Road that's blocked off there and then there's the opening where that van is probably didn't used to be blocked off back in 20 years ago so there's a good chance this could be our guy hey I'm excited very good chance yeah all right we got the car marked Jeremy and Michael got their gear on they're going to be diving this one you guys ready we almost ready how's the water feel chilly chilly but it's so hot today I it feels pretty good and the visibility is amazing at this location so I think we'll be able to quickly identify what this car is and uh hopefully we can find some answers to this case cuz you know it's been you know it's been almost 30 years so they're going to go down try to see if there's a tag any information we are looking for a Ford Tempo there's also some other Cas connected to a uh an F-150 I believe a truck and so we'll see what this thing is I don't think it's a truck though but we'll see all right they just dropped down there and uh hopefully we'll get some answers to what this vehicle is [Music] what oh that's po okay CL TI [Music] long [Music] [Music] Toyota looks like a minivan a minivan yeah oh no tag Tag's been taken hasn't it yeah I don't know it's been taken but it's not on there not on there probably some of the clearest water you could dive on a car really yeah I got down there the magnet wasn't attached and I just started going up stream you could see it from like a ways away it's kind of cool all right so that was not our car it was a Toyota minivan of some sort and now we're going down to the next vehicle which I'm going to dive on all right man so how was your dive on that van it was pretty fun a clear water it's not what I'm used to find anything around it any Treasures you did wanted to look around but I was like no let's get this other car done first water is great dud we can do some treasure hunting today and have like great visibility oh it's amazing I wonder if there's anywhere down here is this up of a Guster or below this is below so I no I've never been down here I have no idea what's down here sites around here look at the Old Dot right here you can find Old Plantation site yeah there's a lot of a lot of history H you still make it work I got, I don't know we got two full tanks or did you take one no there's two no I I use the one saw m I got I got a th in mine all right let's go down here and check this car up man love just stting feel good man what you talking about all go up I [Music] know [Music] [Music] not [Music] one is I don't see fight [Music] ah [Music] [Music] [Music] what huh a red pass for another vehicle man visibility you can about see it from right going down that's say I thought I did probably were I mean it looks pink but I mean it's obviously it's red but it's a passport upside upside down he said the wheels are missing yeah some of the real were all of them missing I think all of them were water F great visibility amazing there are a lot of like bottles and stuff around over there don't H much clearer than this that's for sure Bott not too too old but they're bottles man well at least we know now not our car we can pull them out at some point grab that all right so there's a red passport what is that Honda some right sure behind you Honda on the front Honda Passport uh yeah he said Honda Passport no tag that I can see looks like it's been down there a while they might know about it was it all covered in that green oo yeah like that other car was completely covered it was kind of it was like whitish it was like M and stuff yeah the current was kind of ripping too it was a little tough unless I was like right behind it but yeah no plate not the car we're looking for we're going to keep scanning we kind of knew this was a possibility but um you know have having not Dove on these yet I was just really curious if they were our vehicles but there two more cleared in a gusta there's a lot more water so we're going to keep on searching all right guys we just got back to the land got the boat and everything all the gear put up uh it was a pretty quick dive we just really wanted to cover those two cars that we had found and double check that you know they weren't uh they didn't belong to Al Hamilton and you know we cleared two more so that's a good thing we're going to keep looking cuz there's more water there's a lot more spots around this area um so we both got a chance to dive you on the first one sure did man as far as visibility goes you don't get that that often no you don't yeah and and Michael joined us today you haven't done too many car uh Dives have you no it's some of my first car Adventures so so uh maybe we'll see you on some more here soon man hopefully we'll do some recoveries on our wrecked and recovered Channel if you haven't uh subscribed to that I think we can get these out honestly I mean we could float that one that one might be a challenge getting it up here yeah but I mean no tag there obviously a band hell that would have wheels you said so yeah I mean but it be they'd be easy to the current there's a little bit of a current so it might be a little hard but I wonder if they just backed up a trailer just dump that car out there with no wheels on it maybe dude I don't know there's some back roads back down that way so they might have done that here but if you are a local you probably maybe know the story um actually I heard a rumor that someone D there was like a Lincoln or something out here I thought somebody had messaged me but it might be um might be that best we saw up here yeah but we're going to keep on searching we really appreciate y'all watching and all the support you give us being able to go out on the Ro and search for missing people we got a lot more cases coming up so make sure to subscribe check out Nugget Noggin exploring with nug now go give him a subscribe and check out their videos of the day so till then see you on the next [Music] one [Music] he

Channel: AdamBrownAdventures

Views: 22,085

Keywords: Missing person, Freddie lee smith missing, truck found underwater, Scuba diving search recovery, Unsolved, Solved cold case, william alvin hamilton, al hamilton missing augusta ga, two cars found underwater, scuba diving cold case investiagtion

Id: 3Pudt_xAv2M

Length: 20min 18sec (1218 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 02 2023