- He loved spending time
with family and friends, but 15 years ago he vanished. - We're here in Waterbury, Vermont, where we're looking for Donnie Messier. Donnie went missing October 15th of 2006. - I find it really hard to believe that he's out there alive and well. That just was not his nature. - He was driving in a red
F150 1997 pickup truck. His license plate number was. - [Bill] BGG890. - This is Bill McIntosh. He's also gonna be joining us today to help in the search for Donnie. He's done a lot of research,
and we appreciate your help. Thanks for coming up, Bill. - Honor to be here. - [Reporter] Currier
says it was a tough time for her brother, as he was
going through a divorce. - On Saturday, Donald
Messier was hanging out with his father working on
his truck during the day. He had plans to watch a
NASCAR race that night. Donald went to a friend's house, watched the NASCAR race with his friends, and then later that night he made his way to a party in the town of Waitsfield. - Donald Messier was
last seen driving away in his red F-150 from a
party on October 15th, 2006. - This morning, Bill
and I had a conversation as to where we're gonna start this search. We'll bring you into that right now. (compelling music) (compelling music continues) - Where did he go from that party? Was he going to Denny's, was
he going to the racetrack, or was he going back to his friend's house that he had called at 1:30 in the morning? Or was he going back to the guys that he was with before,
watching the race? I think biggest thing
is, what was he thinking? Where was he doing all his thinking? A lot of the conversations are that Donnie was thinking a lot, that he was contemplating a lot of things, that he was drinking for
the wrong reason that night. And if he in fact was, you know, going to a specific location all the time, where was that location? The next race the next morning, since they were big race fans,
was at 10:00 in the morning at the Thunder Roads race track. He might have stayed in
that location and, you know, started thinking about things. There are the quarries there,
and there's a lot of quarries. It's, you know, 20 or 30 quarry locations that are very deep. That section is, you know, you could be there for a few days. I think clearing this
section, that center line from Blueberry Lake to Waterbury,
I think is the clear path, and then you could branch
out at a different later time to the quarries, or to Lake Champlain. - Last time the team was here, they already cleared Waterbury Reservoir, so maybe start here and then
work our way back north. Yeah, okay, I like that plan. We also got Chris Ferris who was up here last time AWP was in the
area looking for Donnie, and he was kind enough to join us. Thank you, Chris. - You're welcome. - And we also have Downunder
Dan here who's from Australia. He's gonna be my sidekick for today, and we're gonna see if we can find Donnie, at least bring some answers to his family. We're going to get
started with our search, but first Chris is gonna take us over. Apparently Donnie's best
friend works at a garage just over on the other side
of the store right here. We're gonna go see if
we can pick his brain and get some information,
give us any clues as to some other areas
that we might search today. - Nick, I just wanna talk to
you a little bit about his car. Now, we know from the police reports that he'd replaced a brake line. We know that his tires
were a little bit average, fairly worn. You know, there's a lot
of indications that there, this could just simply be an accident where he's gone off the road, little bit of ice, cold weather. - You know, we've got a
lot of new tools this time, so on this particular search
we've got the sonar ball, which will help us rule out some of these smaller ponds and stuff. Rather than taking the
time to put a boat in, we can see is this even
deep enough to hold a car? - Yeah. - If it's not, and we've
also got a new magnetometer that we just picked up,
so depending on the- - It's gonna be a game changer, that. - Oh, yeah, that's big time right there. So I'm looking forward to
finally using that at some point. We may not need it on
this case, but we have it in our toolbox, so that'll
help us quite a bit, make us more efficient. (cars whooshing) - [Dan] Good day, mate, how you doing? Albert is it? - [Albert] Yeah. - [Dan] Yeah, okay. - [Nick] Hey Albert, I'm Nick. - [Albert] Nice to meet you.
- [Nick] Nice to meet you. - [Daniel] I'm Daniel. - Chris, this is Daniel. Jared, and Bill. - Nice to meet you, Bill.
- Nice to meet you. - So we understand you
were friends with Donnie? - Yeah, I was quite a while. Actually, he worked here for bit. I mean, he would post up
at my house, cut wood, and put the greenhouse together
and that kind of thing. - Okay. - Donnie's a good guy. I've known him for quite a while. - Yeah, sorry that he's been missing. That's a terrible thing.
- Yeah, it is. You know, it's been a long time too. - So before we go to our first
location to begin our search, I was just gonna pick your
brain and ask a few questions. You know, we've heard from some people that maybe sometimes he
liked to go and think, and I'm hearing that
maybe he would just drive around and do that. - Yeah, he was a roadie, all right. He rode around back
roads, that kind of thing, and sometimes he'd go
looking for deer, birds, that kind of stuff, but I do
know that it was probably, it's been a long time. That summer, I think it was around June, he was here helping me, and
he was having some issues. He kept saying that he has
things he needs to take care of before he goes away. I was like, "Well where are you going? I mean, we don't want you
to leave, we need you here. We're your friends, whatever." He's like, "Well, I'm just
sick of life, I just wanna go." I'm like, "Okay, well you're
gonna go for ride, whatever." And then a month or so goes
on working here, doing tires, that kind of thing, so I
needed some help at the house. I think it was around October, I don't remember the actual month, but the day before he
disappeared, he was at my house, helped me with an air
compressor, and he said something about there was a quarry that no one knows about other than him, and one of these days he's
gonna drive his truck off the quarry, and that no
one's gonna find him. I told him that, you know,
that really isn't the answer, that he probably shouldn't
be talking like that. I tried to calm him down a little bit, and then supposedly he was
going to a party in Stannard, and then that was last I heard of him. I got a phone call Saturday
morning here from his sister, and wanting to know if I saw Donnie. I'm like, "Yeah, I saw him last night." I said, "He was fine, he
was gonna go to some party, I'm not sure where it was,
but somewhere in Stannard," and she said, "Well, we haven't seen him." Well, that afternoon,
she called back and said, "You seen Donnie?" And I said, "No, which is unusual, 'cause usually Saturdays he comes in, has coffee, and I didn't see him." And then all of a sudden
we get people coming around and asking, "Where's
Donnie, where's Donnie?" Like, "We don't know where Donnie is. He just disappeared." And that was the last I've
heard of anything from Donnie. So I don't know, but how can
you hide a big red truck? - Right. - I mean, Donnie's a big
guy, you know, he was huge. I mean, he was strong. He was a teddy bear, but he
was strong, and you know, I mean, he was likable by
everybody that came around him. But you know, buddy of
mine, Ron had his boat. We went up to reservoir,
he had a fish finder, went through there, went around places that I knew he hung out at, and nothing. I mean, I don't, you know, deer hunting and that kind
of thing, and no sign at all. - No sign. - But again, where's the truck? How do you hide a red F-150,
shiny, fresh new paint and that kind of thing,
I mean, where did it go? I don't know. - Right. What lake did you check, or did you check? - Well, it was the reservoir here, and another friend of
mine went up to Elligo, you know, up to Caspian,
and that kind of thing with a fish finder, 'cause
the fish finder is only as good as it is, but we didn't
see anything at the bottom other than crap, you know,
typical logs, that kind of thing, but we didn't really see
anything that massive. But that quarry he was talking about, I know there was a bunch of
other people that were talking about it, and said that
he knew of this quarry, but wouldn't tell anybody where it was, so I don't know if
there's anything to that. I don't have any idea. - Okay. - [Dan] He wouldn't have
traveled very far, though? - I don't, he didn't really go that far. I mean, from here to Hardwick's an hour. Stannard is maybe an hour and 20 minutes, that kind of thing, but I don't think he traveled that long
of a distance, you know? - Just in regards to his truck, okay? So you said that he
helped you out a fair bit. So he was quite mechanically minded? - Very. - [Dan] So he had changed
a brake line on his truck the day before, did you know about that? - Yeah, he said something
about he was gonna do it, and I told him if he
needed help, let me know, but I guess he had somebody else. I was busy, so I guess he
had somebody else help him. I'm not sure exactly what
they did to the truck, but there was something that
was done mechanically to it. - And we had reports that
maybe the back tires were a little bit worn down. - A little bit, but I
don't, if I remember right, I mean, it passed inspection, so don't think they
were that bad, you know, a little worn, but
where nothing, you know, too significant to stop him
from getting inspections. - And that night that he disappeared, I'm seeing on the reports
that it sounds like it got down to just below freezing? - It was cold, no doubt about it. - So was there any moisture on the roads? Was there a possibility of some
frost or like, slick roads? - Leaves, leaves. - Leaves, okay. - From the trees, yeah, and sometimes that can
be just as bad as ice. - Okay, that's good to know. That's good information. - It was autumn. - I mean he frequented
Thunder Roads a lot. He did, so a lot of quarries up there. There's over 20 quarries in
that section specifically, but also right near the
party location in Waitsfield, there's also Quarry Road
which has three ponds and a quarry there as well, which no one would know
that they were quarries. - Right, exactly, unless
you're in the area. But again, you would think
that, you know, deer hunters, bear hunters, bird hunters,
somebody would see something. People hike it all the time, so something would, you
would think, but again, I hear a story where someone
was hunting a year or two ago down in Barre behind Elk's Club, they found a guy's wallet 20 years ago from 20 years ago, then
they found a skeleton. So it took that long to
find that, so you know, I mean, it does take a while, 'cause you have to be at
the right place, right time. - Right, okay, well thank you. I appreciate it. - I wish I had more help for you. - Yeah, no, that helps us quite a bit. That's good information. - We'll serve you as best
we can, like as his friend. We're gonna not give up. We're just gonna check
everything, you know, may not get out on this
trip, but you know, we don't give up. That's the AWP Spirit. - [Nick] Blueberry Lake right
outside of Warren Falls. - [Bill] Yeah, that's the same. They just call it Blueberry Pond, so this is the picture of it. It actually shows where
it has two means of egress right into the pond straight through. - [Nick] Oh, gotcha, yeah, yeah. Okay, perfect. (vehicle motor humming) - There's a reason why
he went to Waitsfield, and there's a reason why he told him that he was planning on doing
something with his vehicle. I think if that's the case, you know, we have to start
canceling out the quarries specifically that are between
Hardwick, and Waitsfield. - Right.
- You know? We'll start off with the Bowery Lake, 'cause it's the furthest distance
where someone could drive directly into, and then we can come back to the quarries themselves
and start, you know, checking those off the list. (compelling music) (compelling music continues) - So let's look down here. This might be a good place
to test out that sonar ball. In fact, I'm gonna grab that. You guys can go look at it. I'm gonna grab the sonar ball. - You can see he could like,
get a bit of speed up too without those rocks. - Yeah, but those rocks
weren't there back in '06. He could, you know, again,
this is the furthest distance this way that we would
go, 'cause it has a pond that actually has the
depth, and you have access on that side too.
- I see, yeah. Seeing the way that dog runs
in, it looks quite shallow. - Also and then don't know
if the guardrail was there, but I just don't know how deep it is. - Yeah, and if you look, if he's looking for a secluded space, I can't really see any houses
are looking down on it. It's a couple of, you know,
early hours of the morning, dark, there's no one else around. Just as you said, it just
depends on how deep that is. - He also fished here. - Okay, so he would know. - Looks like Dan's
getting ready to wade out. (water splashing) - A little chilly, but he would've to be
launching it to get it out. (water splashing) - [Nick] Nice, okay, let's
see what we got here. So right there we're at
six and a half feet deep, water temperature 64 degrees. - [Dan] That's a fair way out too. - Right, so now that tells me
that if he did drive in here, you'd see the vehicle
more than likely, however, there are some locations on this lake that we might wanna scan. That guardrail there, I
don't know how far that goes. - Can I suggest, there's
another little beachy kind of area there, wind her in,
and we'll cast out that way, and just change the distance. - [Nick] You want me
to throw it this time? - [Dan] Oh no, 'cause I don't
want you to get it wet boots. - [Nick] Well, I can throw it from here just as far as you
threw it from out there. - [Dan] Oh really, really?
(Nick laughing) - [Nick] Nice, so it's a
little bit deeper over there. We're looking at nine feet. - [Dan] But at three extra feet, though. - Right. - It's a soft bottom lake. - So it's gonna sink. Anything heavy in there's gonna sink. Eight feet, seven and a
half, so yeah, and you see, so it looks like the nine feet is like the constant rate further out. - So I mean, we can
check it with the boat, and we probably should. I just in my mind, if you
were, if you're over here, you're doing it on purpose,
you would think you would pick a place that has a a more deeper. - Well, I think though,
for sake of thoroughness, boat in those two entries
and along that guardrail. - Yeah, I agree. - And then we can say 100% (indistinct). - Absolutely. - When you looked on the map, the road kind of enters
directly in front of each other, like it was an old access road either way. So access point off the
road into the water there, this point here, and then
across the guardrail. You know, too fast around the corner, flip over the guardrail into the water. Unlikely, but we still need to check it. (compelling music) (boat motor humming) (compelling music continues) - Pretty shallow, we got
about five feet of water here, four feet, super bare bottom. If there is a car in here,
it'll be easy to see. We'll clear this first, and
then we're gonna go over and hit the road where it comes
close to the lake over there, and then we'll go over to this, what looks like an old boat ramp as well. (boat motor humming) There's a bit of growth
right here, check this out. Yeah, I'm interested in this
lump of like, growth there. Why is there a mound of stuff,
and it's casting a shadow? We'll go over it here in a minute, go see. - [Helper] That was weird. Doesn't that one kind of
look like wheels upside down? - [Nick] Yeah, that does. - [Helper] But the height
of it doesn't make sense, because that's only like a foot. - [Nick] Yeah, well, that angle it didn't, but wait till I come back here. I think it was actually on the
left side of us on that one. (boat motor humming)
(compelling music) So what I'm looking at is
that patch right there, but yeah, you're right. You'd almost be able to see it if it was, we're only in five feet of water, however. - [Helper] It stops at
2.5 feet, so that's, subtract the difference, that's about five feet in height. - [Nick] Yeah, it's this growth. (boat motor humming) - [Helper] So if this
truck did come out here on the pathway behind us,
you would have to launch it pretty fast, don't you think
in order to get out this far? - Oh yeah, and then you know, you don't even know if it would do it. Again, if he was purposely doing this, sounds like he's familiar with the area, he would pick a quarry that
he's already got in mind that had a steeper drop off. This, I mean, we're 100
feet off shore right now, and we're in four feet of water, so this doesn't seem very probable to me, but we're gonna check it
off the list either way. And it's looking pretty clear. I see a few rocks down below that you can definitely
tell those are rocks. You see these rocks. There's nothing there that looks manmade. - [Helper] How do you know
those are rocks though, is it by the shadow? - The shadow, and the fact that there's nothing squared about 'em. In other words, they
don't look manmade at all, so that's what I'm looking
for is a manmade shadow. You're also looking for
something that's the size of a car too, and being as that you've got your numbers here that can
kind of give you the scale, that's how you can see
if it matches a size of the car you're looking for. This is an F-150, so
it's a fairly big object. There's nothing more to check. I'm gonna go over by that road real quick, but there's nothing in here. This is, even clear out here, we're only in 10 feet of water. (boat motor humming) Okay, so we're over here by the guardrail, and where the road goes real
close to the water right here, and this would be an accident scenario. You can see right up here
that there's a possibility a vehicle could make it past
the edge of that guardrail, and down into the water. Right here where we're at
though, it's only six feet deep, and there's nothing down there. It's pretty clean. I see a few smaller rocks, but other than that you can see real easy. So if there was a vehicle in here, it would stand out like a sore thumb. The shapes that I'm seeing, they are nothing more than
some big boulders down there that aren't even the size of a vehicle. So we're almost across here. I'm gonna do one more
pass just to double check, but it looks like we're clear here, and we'll be moving on
to our next location. I do think there's something
to be said for the quarries. Based on all the information I'm reading, and talking to Bill and Chris, sounds like the local
quarries are gonna be areas of interest to us, and not necessarily these lakes that are more out in the open. (boat motor humming)
(water splashing) - There's not a lot of
places that like are deep. Because of the storms
that happened in Vermont in the last few years, they
removed all the sticks and trees in the rivers, because
they were jammed up, because the bridges all fell. So they cleaned the rivers
all the way to the dam, so they would've found something
if something was in there. And then it went to almost to dry, from a heavy, heavy rains to dry. - And that one was the
Winooski, or the Mad River? - That's the Mad.
- Okay. - Winooski was was overflowing too. (water splashing) (boat scraping) - It's pretty shallow all the way around. It's the same over there,
pretty shallow for way out, like 10 feet deep at the most. That's like 150 feet offshore. We checked over there. That's a little bit deeper,
but there's only a few boulders that weren't even the size of like, this. It was worth checking. Okay, off to the next. - [Bill] So there's another
one up the street here. - [Nick] Okay. - This is a pond off the side. It has access to it. I just don't know how deep it is. It's off of 100. This is 100 right here. The party's another two
miles down the road. So I think, you know, I
think our next piece is going to that pond there down the
street, and working our way towards the party, and
then go beyond the party. - Public or private? - [Bill] It's private. - Okay. - [Bill] Yeah, it's on Quarry Road. We're gonna go to Quarry
Road is what we'll do. - And off of Quarry Road also is where those three ponds are. - [Bill] Exactly, yeah,
there's four in essence in that section on Quarry Road. - But this, if he's talking to Lloyd, this is that secret outta the way quarry. (compelling music) (vehicle whooshing) (compelling music continues) - Lost? - No, we have questions for you. - No. (all laughing) You're looking for a place
to put that, is that correct? - [Nick] We're actually
looking for a missing person that went missing back
in 2006, Donnie Messier, and we're a team out of Oregon
that travels the country specializing in finding
vehicles underwater. There's a few ponds and
a quarry up on this road, and we were seeing if
we can get permission to go scope those out. We have little rafts with sonar equipment, to see if there's a vehicle possibly that he was in the right state of mind. He possibly might have
done this on purpose and drove himself into a body of water. - Not here. Our quarries are all open,
and no water sitting in them. - [Nick] Okay. - The ponds are all surrounded
by fence, so I would know- - [Nick] Gotcha, okay. - If a vehicle went through there, and the pond is very shallow, and he wouldn't get very far
out but the roof would show. - [Nick] Gotcha, okay. - You know, how would you get
out in a boat and look around? - [Nick] Well, yeah, but if you're saying there's a fence around there- - Yeah, I'm saying that. - [Bill] So it was 2006. Was the fence there in 2006? Yeah. - You're welcome to go up
and look at the quarries, but there's no water sitting in 'em. They're all exposed. - [Nick] Okay, thank you so much. I appreciate it. (compelling music) Yeah, it's about 12 and a half feet right where we're at there. Because this shoreline here
where there's no fence, and accessible from the road, I think I wanna put a boat in. It's a pretty steep drop off, and you got this hill right here. You get enough momentum, a
vehicle can make it out there, and go deep enough to
where you wouldn't see it. Let's get a boat ready. (compelling music) (compelling music continues) Nothing out of the ordinary. It's clear. (boat scraping) Okay, so we're right here
where the blue dot is. We just cleared that pond. We got, there's another
pond just right over here. That one- - [Dan] Let's do the one
that's furthest away, and then work our way- - Yeah, 'cause that one
looks like it's not gonna be big enough to be deep enough. - [Dan] Is there actually access to it? - The one that has the
quickest access would be this next one over here, so
six to one half dozen there, that also looks slightly farther. (upbeat music) - Anywhere along here. - [Nick] Oh, you can see the bottom. - [Bill] It looks pretty shallow. - [Dan] Onto the next,
very shallow though. - These are newer houses
here I'm assuming. They look like it. - [Bill] Yeah, those are 2000. - Yeah, you're not getting a car in there without it being still visible. Oh yeah, I can see clear
out almost to the middle. (upbeat music) - [Dan] Oh well, at least we
know now these are cleared. - We're gonna go back to the
other pond down below, right? That last one, and then check that one, and then we'll shoot over
to, we're gonna go backwards, and go back to the pond
that is 30 feet deep. That is the manmade
pond for the Sugarbush. (upbeat music) - You can see algae growing
30 feet off the shore. - [Dan] I think this one's right, Nick. - Now, later tonight we're
gonna have to have you, Brandon, check Dan for ticks. - [Dan] Like a monkey? (Nick chuckling) (upbeat music) - So this is the location, apparently this is it
of where the party was that he was last seen at,
and it was back behind there. There was like a field,
and some barns and stuff. Some of the witness statements
said that Donnie's actions at the party were a little different. He was feeling down in the
dumps, kind of depressed. He was kind of hanging out by himself. He told somebody that he was
drinking for the wrong reasons. So we don't know exactly
his state of mind, but it sounds like he wasn't necessarily in a normal state of mind. That's why we're, you know, trying to put ourselves
in the shoes of somebody that's feeling depressed,
they've had a few drinks, maybe that's making it even
worse, and so, you know, he left by himself,
and nobody really knows exactly which direction he went. So at this point in time,
it could be any direction. That's why this is a very tough case where we really have
to cover all our bases, and just start close,
and go every direction, and make sure we're checking
all the waterways nearby. That affects our search
a little bit is that now we're looking for two things, one, a potential accident, but two, also potential self-harm
scenario where he was looking for a place to drive off into the water. We already know that a
couple months prior to this, he told his friend that
he knew of a secret quarry that if he went there
nobody would ever find him, so you know, why would you
say something like that? So now that makes us,
we're looking at places that are off the beaten path
that are kind of secluded, that people wouldn't
see it if he went there. So that, you know, makes the
search a little bit tougher, 'cause now we're looking
at every possible scenario around the local area. (truck creaking) - [Bill] That's where we are. We're just through the
woods around this corner, and it's right there. - I just wonder why it says road closed. - [Bill] Just because they're
doing construction on it. - [Nick] Okay, I'm gonna
say we are right here. - Well, they went down there anyway. - They're gonna go scope it out. - Dan and Chris are
gonna meet with somebody to see if they can get access to the pond. So this is supposed to be
the deepest body of water in the area, because it's manmade 30 feet. It looks pretty shallow,
but this is the pond that actually feeds Sugarbush
Mountain, which is a ski hill. There's pipes that run
all the way up the hill to Sugarbush, so it could
be a lot deeper than we see. And there's access all
the way around the pond, so there's a trail all the way around it. - I think Dan is waving us over. - So this is just constructed in 1995, and it's only five feet
deep at the moment. They're just in the
process of draining it, so there's no chance that
there's a vehicle in here. - The bottom will undulate a little bit, but I think the average
depth out there is gonna be about five feet right now, you know, with it in this drawn down condition. - [Helper] Really, so like,
it being this low, I mean, Ben over here said that it got as deep as 30 feet in the middle. Is that true? - That's not true at all? - [Helper] Not at all? - It's never been that deep. - [Helper] Ever?
- No. - [Helper] Okay. So what's its typical level at? - You can actually see the, you can see the bathtub ring right there, so where the vegetation ends, that's standardly what the
normal water level would be in this reservoir. - So I think we need to get
back towards the Winooski River. It's a little bit wider, bigger river, and there's also some ponds
that are on the side of Route 2 and on River Road in that section where there's some dangerous turns too. (compelling music) So this section, there's some
deep spots in this corner, and in this corner. The road comes around tight on this side, and his house is over here, - Okay, if he was going home-
- So there's another bridge down that's like the erector set bridge. That's down here, so you cross over. Butler Pond's over there,
that's close to the road. This section's close to the road. So like, going downstream
this way and clearing it. - Just this way? - Yeah, you know, you can
go as far as you want, and I mean, it's a pretty
beautiful little spot. (compelling music) - [Nick] It's a daunting task. There's a lot of water, a lot of options, lot of places Donnie could have went once he left that party, and it just takes an incredible amount of time
to cover all this ground, and all this water. We gotta get away from this rock. - [Helper] You got a big rock right there. - [Nick] I see it, dude. (water splashing)
(compelling music) - [Helper] Oh, wow. - Dude, we were in like
the shallowest water you've ever seen. - [Helper] Dude, I could get out, and just pull us, but I mean, this is like
a fun little boat ride. - You say that now. Okay. ♪ Oscar hoo hoo hoo hoo ♪ We're gonna leave these. It's awkward, but it works. (compelling music) (boat motor humming) (compelling music continues)
(boat motor humming) It's like a mystery. We're going into the unknown right now. We're on the Winooski
River heading downstream, and we don't know where
we're gonna get out, or how we're gonna get out. So basically between now and the dam, we have to search all the
possible waterways close to the road, River Road that
runs down next to the river, and we have to try to find a spot where, number one, we can get the
boat up off out of the river through the trees, and
two, we have to find a spot that we can do that where the RV and the trailer can make it to, so it's like a little challenge. Now see, we're in deep water right here. You can't see the bottom, but
there's no road or any way for a vehicle to get to
this part of the river. So basically a lot of this
time we're gonna be spending is just getting to the deep
holes next to the road, and then scan those areas. I'm getting into pretty shallow water. (water splashing) I gotta get us across the river. (water splashing) All right, super shallow water. It's the benefit of these little boats. You ain't gonna do this
with a big aluminum boat. We're skimming across the bottom. You hear that? Okay, we're back in like,
three or four feet of water. I'm gonna fire up the boat. I'm gonna take us over
to where you can see it looks like it's deeper on that edge, and that gets us closer to where the road's gonna eventually be. Okay, I can see vehicles now over here, and we've got some, a
little bit of deep holes. (boat motor humming) I'm curious how deep it is. Real quick I'll just check. We're only in four feet of water. I can see the bottom, but
we'll keep scanning it. You never know when there's
gonna be some holes like this. I'll get closer to the road here. This is River Road. You can see the bottom right over here. This side I can't, but it
could be this angle of the sun in relation to where we're going. We got more rapids coming
up, I gotta get ready. - Right now they're going down this way towards north Duxbury, but they're following in
essence Route 2 and River Road all which goes all the way down, so if he came this way on the Route 2, or if he came this way,
that way on River Road, there's bends in each one of 'em that are- - [Chris] Does he know to
stop at that first pond, or do you need to call him? - I think we could probably
call him and tell him that he could stop at Berlin Pond, or we could come around on Route 2, and- - [Chris] And just stop there. (truck motor humming) - So let's check it out. I'm gonna pull these up
because we're getting shallower as we get closer to these rapids, and we're basically just gonna
have to kinda leapfrog this. - [Chris] Hey, you can't fish there. - [Nick] What's that? - [Chris] You can't fish there. Where's your boat registration? (chuckles) (upbeat music) - Four feet, still pretty shallow. We're still following River Road. There's a hole coming up here. That's definitely a potential. Oops, it's getting shallow there, careful. So we're in eight feet of water, so technically the vehicle
could be under here, and even though the vehicle's red, remember a lot of times
vehicles end up upside down once they go into water
because once they fill up- Hang on a second. (boat motor humming) Once they fill up, the buoyancy of the tires turns them over. I'll double check something
that we went over over here. (compelling music) - This right here? - [Nick] Yeah. - I mean, that's not a truck. - [Nick] I mean, it could just be a rock, but I gotta scan that at a couple angles. - We could scan it, or since
this is shallow enough, I suggest that maybe we
could put our live scope right over it, and we
could take a look at that, and if we can, we could
just drop a magnet on it just to see. Right there, we're
coming up on it, I think. See it's just, wait, wait,
wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, doesn't that look like the bed of a truck? - [Nick] Yeah.
- [Helper] Right there at the back, doesn't that
look like it's buried? (boat motor humming) - [Nick] There's
something square in there? - [Helper] Yeah, yeah, yeah. - [Nick] Oh yeah, what is
that right there, right there? - That almost looks like a cab. I mean, the height doesn't add up. It's not the right height. - [Nick] Unless it was buried for a while. - Because of that flood in 2011, and then the flood pushed all the silt- - Yeah, if it would've came off and maybe, I mean, it's too close to the surface, but if it's upside down, the color of the bottom of vehicle's dark. - We need to move just a
little bit more this way. - This way you think?
- Just a little bit more. - You sure?
- I'm sure, just because we're not right
over it with our live scope. It's like right under us, so we need to go a little bit more left. - [Nick] So here it comes up, see that? That's what we're looking at. - [Helper] So now we're right over it, but I think that might
be a rock all day long. - [Nick] I can see you're
bouncing right on top of it, so if it's not sticking, keep doing it, because we're going right
over the top of the high part, which would be the cab right about now. Yep, that would be like the
windshield-ish or something. Nothing? (boat motor humming) Keep doing it as we go. - [Helper] It's so weird. Like, if that's a rock,
that's a pretty weird rock, 'cause it feels like it wants to stick, but I mean, to me I feel like- - [Nick] It's not tall enough? - [Helper] It's not the right height. I'm bouncing off of it. - [Nick] Yeah, if it was,
F-150's got a lot of steel in it, especially if it's upside
down or even right side up. - [Helper] The year he went missing too, do you remember the year? - [Nick] 2006. - [Helper] He went missing in 2006. - [Nick] So 16. - 2006, so it's gonna be a rock. I feel like if it is a vehicle- - [Nick] I just don't
think it's tall enough. - Like, it's just all that's
left is a frame, you know? But it does, at times, it
feels like it wants to stick, but I almost feel like it's
just my magnet getting stuck in a little crevice. - It's just a rock. I don't feel any like- - [Helper] No magnetic pull. - No, it's not, okay. - [Helper] If it was a car,
I feel like it'd be super- - Yeah, we would, with
two of us you'd feel it. I think you'd take, it
would take more force than what we're using to
pull the magnet off of it. I mean, dude, now I'm
looking at it from out here, we just went over it. Look at that, I dunno,
but magnets don't lie. It's just not tall enough. - [Helper] But we had the
same problem the other day when I was in the boat with Jared. Those cars we found, we put the magnet all over
it, and it wouldn't stick. That's why there was
no buoy attached to it. - Well let's- - [Helper] We know where it's at. We know where it's at. If we have to dive, we
could go dive on it. So if that is a vehicle,
it's gotta be something from like the '50s, 30
years old, 50 years old. Definitely not-
- [Nick] Not only 16 years? - [Helper] Yeah. - So here we are going
down the Winooski River. We're still following River Road, so anywhere along here still
could be a possibility. Where it turned, the road is
going to turn and disappear away from the river. There's another bridge coming up downtown. We can go all the way to where
the river ends it looks like. Okay, I see him up there. (compelling music) Should we get out here or keep going? - [Chris] Probably best to get out here, and then we can just
eyeball spots along the way. - [Nick] Yeah, there's not a whole lot. There's only a couple spots
that were deep enough. - [Chris] Yeah, I'll open
up the back of the trailer. Go ahead and bring it up. - My conclusion was
that if it is a vehicle, it's something like 30, 50 years plus. - Or any storms, it's
completely ripped the top and shredded it. - That's why we thought,
that's why we put magnet. - Even if he smashed it
wouldn't be disintegrated, ripped off to the top with the other. - A lot of ice flow back there. - Right, 'cause for the height
to add up, and I was like, with that storm in 2011, and
that's, it could be buried. So that's why we got the magnet out and started putting it on it, and we just couldn't
get a good stick on it. - Yeah, I don't see any tires on it. - Yeah, no we didn't. I mean, at one point it looked like what could maybe be a cab, but if that was the
case, it would've been, the rest of it would've been
it the bottom of the creek in the river. - [Helper] Like just buried. - [Nick] Yeah. - Or downstream. - So the question now
at this point, I mean, are you still 50/50, or
are you 100% confident? - I'm 100% confident with, I mean what I know that it's not anything. If it is something, it's
something like, super old. - In my mind, I'm still questioning it. - [Chris] To the extent that
you'd like to bag on it? - No, but it's right off the shore. I'd like to go back and
throw the magnet in, and see what you think,
and see if we could, 'cause the current kept
kind of screwing with us. It was hard to like, stay in
one spot and really work it. And like he was saying that
you've seen spots before where it felt like, he was saying it felt like it was gonna stick, but it didn't. - [Helper] And you just can't really tell. - But then I tried, and
I didn't feel any magnet. - [Chris] But the water's
only 10 feet, right? - Yeah, it was 10 feet deep total. - You should be able to see it, right? - [Helper] Like a pony
ball, take a pony ball? I mean, I'll go do that. - Wait, do you wanna do that? - Yeah, I mean, I
already got in the water. I know how cold it is. (chuckles) - It was the only object that had- - How far from the road? - Oh, it's like less than six feet away. You remember where you guys were, where you stopped the last
time where Brian hiked down and was filming us? 100 yards downstream from that. - If you want to gimme like a pony ball, I'll go with a mask. - Let's go back up there,
'cause we can pull off plenty. It makes it perfect sense for somebody to shoot
a vehicle off of there. - Well, yeah, that's what we thought. That's the reason I was
like, this would make sense. - [Helper] If you Want,
I'll do a pony ball. I'll put my swimsuit on
and take a pony ball. - Okay, let's do that. (truck motor humming) - Yeah, there's a little point right down here, 75, 100 yards. There's like a little pool. You can't really see it unless
you were to walk down here. I mean- - I mean, it is a dumping spot. I mean, if you look at it,
there's car parts, there's tires, there's other things that
have been dumped in here. (compelling music) - Yeah, so see where it goes like this? When it comes back to that
point, it's right off that point, so 75 yards, maybe 100. If somebody could have launched off here, there's a possibility they
could end up where this was at. (compelling music) And you got the mask? - Yeah. - Oh yeah, you're gonna kill it, dude. We're gonna make a scuba
diver outta you yet. (compelling music)
(water splashing) Test it. There you go. - It works. - And when you put that on, you can wedge your lip
underneath that seal, and it keeps 'em a little bit warmer. And then turn your light on. Yeah, so I would go in
up current a little bit, and then work your way down. You remember how far out it is? It's not very far. You could see pretty good. You should be able to see it. Do you know how to equalize as your ears start to feel pressure? Plug your nose and exhale
a little bit, okay? - On to the left, got it, all right. - [Nick] Turn it on just
a hair more, there you go. - All right light's all working. - Yep, remember as you're going down, don't forget to equalize early and often, every like three feet. - Right. - [Nick] Okay? - All right, dude, I think I'm ready. - [Nick] Do you wanna take this or no? - Yeah, lemme take it. - [Nick] There you go, you're good. And if you need to, you
can let the light dangle until you need to grab it. Good luck. (water bubbling)
(air hissing) (water bubbling)
(air hissing) (water bubbling)
(air hissing) (water bubbling)
(air hissing) (water bubbling)
(air hissing) (water bubbling)
(air hissing) (water bubbling)
(air hissing) (water splashing)
(compelling music) - [Nick] What'd you find? - I think we just found Donnie. (compelling music) - [Nick] It surprises me
that that one 10 foot hole in that entire stretch
of river that we scanned, that's where it was. (compelling music)
