- [Man] Yes, sir. - Hey, we have confirmation. This is our vehicle. Do you want to call it in, or
do you want us to call 911, or what do you wanna have done? (inspiring music) (gentle piano music) Today, we're starting a new
case in Lakeland, Florida, looking for Margaret Shupe Smith. She goes by Jan Shupe. This is one of those cases
to where she has a friend that she talks to at
least 10 plus times a day. - She was last seen at
Publix not far from here on closed circuit
television security footage where she'd ended up leaving her wallet with her photo identification and her financial resources inside and never came back for them. - And this was April 2nd, 2021. So we're looking at just
nine, 10 months ago, driving a 2012 Kia Soul.
- Yep, Kia Soul, 2012, green in color, and
license plate, JLQA90. - Now we're all creatures of a habit. And by this, what I mean is
when we live in the community, we tend to we go to work, we go home, we go over and we visit our family. And so we have some information
and we're continuing to gather more as the day goes along. What we do know is that Jan
is 59 years old, divorced, I've been told from our research that we have, a little bit depressed. And so we have a couple
of different scenarios. Are we looking at an accident on this one, or potentially losing
the wallet that evening, is that something that may have triggered and pushed somebody over the edge to cause them to do something on purpose? - Possibly. - So in starting our search today, I want to bring Jeremy
from Exploring with Nug, as well as Britain from
Depths of History into this as we discuss this first,
most important, location that I really want to jump into. So while we're still
waiting on some information as to the residential
neighborhood, was this her house, was it her grandchild's house,
or was this her best friend, what we do know is that we
have license plate readers that took her from that
residential development just down the road on
Shepherd, straight to Walmart. What we do know is that coming right outta that residential development, there is a pond with no guardrails. It's my first area of interest. Let's all jump over there. If by chance we don't find her there, then we're gonna break back to the North to Southgate Publix. There's a couple of lakes
up there with boat ramps. We're gonna do everything
we can today to find Jan and bring her home to our family. Hello, this Jared. - [Jim] Hey, Jared, it's Jim Carter. - Hey Jim, how you doing? - [Jim] Apparently not
very good detective work, that's for sure. - Oh, no worries. - [Jim] Marlie's number's
been disconnected, which Marlie was her daughter. Laura, I think it was, said that
they know that she's gone, and she's not coming back and it's no use to doing anything else. - And who's Laura? Is that a daughter as well? - [Jim] Her sister. - Okay, and she doesn't want
anybody looking for her. What's the story with that? - [Jim] I don't know, really. It's got me kind of confused anyway. - Okay, by chance, do you know... So we have license plate readers that picked her up quite
a bit over off of Shepherd and the Walmart over here off of Carter. Do you know, did she live
over here off of Shepherd or whose house is this over here? - [Jim] I think she lived over there. - Okay. All right, well, yeah, this
is where we're gonna start. There's a pond right across the street from the housing development
that she was picked up quite a bit on over there.
So we're gonna start there. - All right.
- Bye bye. - [Jim] Bye. - So we have potential parking in here. This is the pond I'm really interested in. And it's not this road. I don't think it's this one.
I think it's the next one that she would come out of. - [GPS Voice] Turn left
onto Imperial Parkway. - Right coming up here, and you're gonna see
there's no guardrails here, but there's also an open spot. So I think coming outta here, open entry into here, and this pond is what I'm interested in. (compelling music) So what we're looking for
also is the water level to be about six to seven
feet to hide a vehicle. Right now, we're at four and
a half, five feet, six feet. So we're deep enough to hide a vehicle. If there's a vehicle here, and it's either foul play
or on purpose off of here, if it's off of Shepherd, then
we're looking at an accident. And we're at 15 feet here,
so we're plenty deep. (compelling music) All right, gonna give
a quick sonar overview if you've never seen this before. This is our live scope. You can actually see fish
swing by in real time here. Over here on the left is
more of a picture in time. We have down imaging and
we have side imaging. The bottom one is side imaging. We're casting 75 feet to the
left, 75 feet to the right. Anything from the boat icon
to black is water column to the bottom of the boat. And anything over here
is beyond the shore. You see, we're not quite within
the 75 feet from the shore. And so that's where the shoreline is at. The top one here, anything from the top to the bottom is water column. And then from there, you can see that as
this moves up and down, it matches the depth
here for the grid lines that come across. So that's a quick sonar overview for you. And if a vehicle's in here,
it's gonna pop up for us. We're gonna see it no problem in here. So right now just a lot of
fish in here is what we have. A lot of fish. And really, I suspect that
if we are gonna find her, it's gonna be within the
next 100 yards right here if there's a vehicle in here. - [Doug] Oh, what is that? - [Jared] Yeah, I don't know what that is. Circle back.
- What is that? (compelling music) - [Jared] 18 Feet to the right? - [Doug] I mean, it appeared
like it's been down there for a long time, but... - Yeah, and I think it was more square. - [Doug] Yeah, we are looking for a Kia Soul.
- We are dealing with a Kia Soul though, it's square. It's not very big. - It's not tall enough.
- Not tall enough. Worth the second look though. - Yep. So this is not the first
case that we ran into where you family members
like they've just accepted, and they feel as though
there's no additional hope there's no reason to keep looking, there's no reason to, I'm
gonna say, open the wound or keep the wound open. Like they just want to be
able to move forward from it, that they're providing
like their own closure that they've accepted it. And it's tough. We want to come in and help these families and provide those answers
that they do not yet have. Whereas like I said, a lot of
them have already accepted. They've already moved on. And that's why at times we
don't have the family members that come out and are with
us as we're on these cases. And I get it. - [Doug] 12 Feet. - [Jared] A lot of fish in here. - [Doug] 13 Feet. - Whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, what we got there? - [Doug] That was
definitely something really- - It's only two feet tall, but let's go back over
it at a different angle. Do more of a side shot over here of it. - That's a tree.
- Tree log. - So our interest in our
media focused in this area has to do with the license
plate being read on ALPR systems in this area very frequently. And as Jared was touching on earlier, we are creatures of habit. So the fact that we can
verify that her license plate was captured on these ALPR
systems very frequently in this immediate area is what draws us to this body of water and
the next few bodies of water we're gonna go to. - [Jared] I swear, that is (indistinct), comes up so much.
- Man, that is not a tree. On that scenario again. - Let me back up to it.
- Is that a big gator with his tail curled up there in the back? Do you see it? (laughs) - [Jared] I'm not sure. I wanna pick it up on live. - [Doug] Yeah, I see it right there. It is, I see it. - It's a log.
- Yeah, it's a log. It's just really weird. Anyway, so 14 feet, a
nice, very consistent depth in this body of water, but so far nothing, But we still have so
much more water to check, really good areas too. - I mean, this is closer
to her house though. - [Doug] Yeah, this is
absolutely most logical. I think boat ramp's next, and then just knock out
everything in between that is logical. This one and boat ramps are
gonna be the most logical. - So, I think now at this point, knowing that we have like a 7:30 p.m. up at the Southgate Publix, I mean, that's our last
known CCTV location that we have of her now, and are we now going and to be looking at, did she realize that she lost her wallet? Is she just completely... This set her off and now this becomes a
on purpose investigation. So like I said, we'll make our way to the Southgate up there. There's two. There's a body of water, a
lake that's closest to it. It has one boat ramp. And then there's probably
three or four more to the North of that as
well, that have boat ramps. So, we'll make our way up there. So now here's my question to all of this. We had a Publix right
there that was next to that across the street from the
pond and across the street from her where she lived. We also have the Walmart over here, but the last known
location was to the North at the Publix like five
or six miles to the North is where we're going. I'm try trying to figure out
how the Publix to the North ties into why she would've been up here. - You know, a lot of that
is gonna have tie into- - [Jared] Where she worked. - That.
- Was she visiting her friend? - Different social activities. - Her daughter. Was her daughter up there, and it was just on the way home she was grabbing a gallon
of milk or something as she's heading home at 7:30 p.m.? - Yeah. I mean, there's different... Like I have a Fred Meyer
that's right near my house, but I don't always go to that. I go sometimes to the one
a few miles to the North, because it's a little bit bigger. but I go to both of them. Depending on the mood
I'm in and what I want, I might go to the bigger one. And like you said, if she was visiting with
a friend in that area, they wanted to grab something. Or who knows, people meet up
at a lot of these parking lots for just a lot of the
different social activities. - Now coming down Florida,
we want to keep our eyes out, but I didn't see anything else
off of Florida from Publix to shepherd to her house. I didn't notice any accident
locations for body of water. - Likewise, I didn't either. (gentle music) - So I don't know if this entire lake is gonna be shallow like
this all the way around. Like we have the one boat ramp here, but if you look to the North side, we've got the road that's going around. And I was looking at it on Google. So, we can either do two things. We can either have you
guys put a boat in here and you guys can go one
way, we'll go the other, meet in the middle, and
then just jet back across, or we can send you guys to another lake and have you guys go
check another boat ramp in another lake location. What do you guys wanna do? - I'm open. I'm open to whatever. We
can knock this one out. - Okay. - [Britain] Think all of us
can knock it out pretty quick to cover (indistinct). - Okay, yeah, we'll do that. And then we'll just tackle
this all the way around. Hopefully it gets deeper
and we'll find something. (gentle music) So, now, we're gonna head that
direction around the lake. You guys had that
direction around the lake. We'll meet up in the middle. (motor rumbles) - I'm reading 3.2 feet. So I can see exactly the
same thing Jared sees in front of me. And also, as you guys have seen in a couple of our other videos
now that this has come out, we have amazingly enhanced
sonar opportunity for you guys to see in full screen. So this records everything
that Jared's seeing. And then I also get to keep
my eyes on sonar as well, which is great, 'cause a lot of times I'm
often wondering over here what he's looking at. - You have just a lot of shallow, a lot of lily pads. Too far away from the road. Hopefully over here, we'll have
some better places to scan. You see some of the vehicles
coming across over there like where the van and the car is at, closer to the water. - [Doug] It's all real shallow, man. - Yeah, you just never know
until you get in the water, put eyes on it. Let's go check that one out. Still shallow with
everything else too though. You can see the grass growing up here. - [Doug] What were we depth wise? - Nine feet here.
- Nine feet? - So nothing over there. There's a lot of lily pads. It's really shallow around a lot of it. There's only-
- Six feet. - Six feet deep over
100 feet off the shore. - Yeah, there's only- - Here's the deepest
part I've seen so far. - Yeah, there's only two locations for us to even search over there. And we're gonna stop off
here at Christina Lake. And I think we're gonna
make that our last location. Nothing else after that is making sense. So we'll go hit that and
possibly Six Pound Pond Lake, 'cause her house is
right here and Walmart. - And are we going back
closer to her house? - Yes, that'll be Christina Pond. After we do this one, I don't feel like going one
any further to the North is we can justify. So I think that we need
to go back down Florida. All this is shallow here,
but maybe the boat ramp. Anyway, heading back down from
the Publix towards her house, there's Christina Pond
right there on the left before you get to Walmart. That's really the only other body of water between the Publix and her house. As we're coming up this
road around the lake on the West side, there's not gonna be any accident
locations off of that one. You can tell just by the lily pads. It's only gonna be a foot
or two deep over there. Really, as far as I can tell
around this entire lake, we only have the boat ramp here to search, and then we'll move down
to the Christina Pond. Just push the boat in. (motor rumbles) Five feet, six feet, nine feet. Oh, it drops fast. - We have a car.
- Do we? - [Doug] Oh, there's gotta be a car here. - [Jared] Feel like it. - [Doug] I just feel
like there's a car here. - And some tires on the left. The other thing to take into
account over here is the winds. And with a vehicle, they'll
float for two to 10 minutes. How the vehicle can get pushed
over and a little bit further depending on what the wind may have been at that moment in time. But with a steel boat ramp like that, it's not gonna be any further than this. - [Doug] How about this
little section right here? - [Jared] Yeah. - [Doug] Drove through the
back side of the parking. - Nothing, clean. All right, well that one's clear too. So we'll head down to Christina Pond next and keep checking them off. (gentle music) So this next body of
water that we're going to, Christina Lake, is pretty
much what I would say the second closest, most likely
body of water to her house that would potentially
kind of sort of make sense. I'm not really sold on it. It is across the street from a Home Depot. It's right there on Florida. It's right there right before
you get to Shepherd Road. It's right there on the way to Walmart within her little radius right there. - [Doug] Why did she leave her wallet? - I mean, people accidentally
leave their wallets like the cash register. - [Doug] Yeah, but no ever came back, never come back. - Didn't notice it, which
sometimes things like that happen. - That's the biggest red flag in this is she was last seen there on
security surveillance system, and she left her wallet, one
of the most precious things you have as a personal item
and (snaps) never came back. - Okay, okay, okay, okay. So follow me on this one. So now we're heading
South on Florida Avenue. We come down here. We notice now, as we
get down to Home Depot by Christina Lake, this
is where she realizes she forgot her wallet. So let's say that she makes a left in here to make a U turn to head back. And this is where we're going to find her. This brings us to Christina Lake. - I like that. - It's the only other body of water. - That makes absolute sense. And when we're retracing
possible footsteps that this... - And there's two little bodies of water. There's the Christina Lake, and then there's a something Pond Pound like Six Pound Pond Lake
right next to it as well. And then outside of that, there is no other bodies
of water along this route for a potential accident location. Okay, so I have also here,
follow me on this one also. We have one other potential body of water just South of Christina Lake. And this is the, hey, I just
realized, I forgot my wallet, an additional location to
make a left to turn around. So, we have three potential
down here with that scenario. - [Doug] And I wonder
where her cell phone played into all of this as well. - I don't have any cell phone data or information on this one. - [Doug] I would assume
she had her cell phone, and the cell phone just
pinged in this area like it always does and just
stopped pinging in this area. - I don't even have the information. Did she have her cell phone, or was her cell phone left behind with her purse (indistinct)? - [Doug] I couldn't
undercover any information in regards to cell phone. In all of the literature out there, it doesn't mention cellphone one time. I'm thinking maybe because
it wasn't suspicious, they never mentioned it. Could be her cellphone's always
pinging off of this tower, and then it just stops. It's of no help to them,
so they never mention it. - Yeah, I have no idea.
- Mission. (gentle music) - All right, there we
go, six feet, nine feet. You got big stick over on
your side right there too. So right now we're at six feet. Ooh, ooh, we have a vehicle in here. We have a vehicle right here. Okay, one vehicle. Let's scan the rest of it. I can't tell what it is, but we'll come back over
it in just a moment. Coming up that corner to
that intersection up here. Yeah, I mean, we just barely
made one pass over it, so we'll get some different angles of it and see if we can identify
if it's square and boxy or what shape it might be. - [Doug] What did it look like to you? - [Jared] Oh, it's a car.
It's definitely a car. I mean, the moment it popped up, there's no doubt that it's a vehicle. - Upside down, right side up? - [Jared] Upside down, I believe. - And right here, we're
right at the intersection. - [Jared] Yeah, so you have Home Depot's right across the road there. - Yeah, and this side over here is where there's no barriers over here. You can come through right here. - [Jared] And then once you
start to get right here, now you've got too much foliage and you have a fence over here. So over here we have nothing
but fish, fish, fish, but over there, 100%, we have a vehicle. We're gonna go mark it, dive it, and see if it's what it
is we're looking for. Right over the top?
- Yep. - All right, so I'm gonna hit it at some different angles right now. Okay, so it's off to
the right right there. Off to the right right here. - [Doug] How deep? - It's nine feet, nine
and a half feet deep. Okay, there we go. All right, it's a pickup truck. I believe it's a pickup
truck on its wheels. So this is not what we're looking for. I'm getting blown off target. So let me bring it back over, Then I'll show you. Gonna come up right there. So right there, pickup truck on its side all day long. Single cab. So if you wanna start getting
ready, I'll take Carson out. We'll mark it. All right, there you go.
- There's your buoy. - There you go. All right, so while you're
suiting up and getting ready, we're gonna mark this and
then we're gonna go scan the rest of this over here.
- All right. (gentle music) - All right, there we go. We're caught on it. All right, let's go scan the rest of this. Let's tell Jeremy and Brit
that we have over here as well if they want to come down. Yeah, that's it. Oh, we might have two vehicles there. - [Carson] Like a sedan. - Yeah, you see that? Thing was huge. In fact, let me show you this right here on the side imaging. So I've got it up there
from the down imaging. I've got it there on the side imaging. It's definitely another pickup truck. So these are definitely not the vehicles that we're looking for for Jan, but when we go back over
that pickup truck, though, I wanna see if there's another
vehicle right up next to it. Yeah, right, nothing else this way. We have a second pickup truck
that we just located as well. We should be coming back up
to the pickup truck right now. All right, here it is right here. And I can't tell if I actually have two
vehicles here or one. Coming straight into the log right there. I think it's just one more. Hey, Doug, we have a
second vehicle as well! We'll hit it at some
different angles here. Yeah, see, that looks like
at the bed of a pickup truck. So it would've been the cab first, and then the bed of the truck second. Now I'm gonna put it on the
left side of the screen. So, cab of the truck right there. That's the bed of the truck, and then the cab with the truck. See that? It's still another 18 feet this way. So I'm trying to get us lined up with it, so I can get you a better
view on live scope here. All right, I should be
bringing you right over it. Right about now we should
be coming up on it. There it is. All right, so let's grab
another buoy and a magnet. We'll mark this one Yeah, right, there we go. All right, well, we scanned all of this. There's nothing else to scan. (gentle music) Radio check, radio check. Do you have ears on me? All right, do your thing. - [Doug] All right, so I'm on the vehicle. It is a Dodge. - I think you said it's a Dodge. - [Doug] All windows are open. (gentle music) We got an extended cab here. Florida typically I think
only has a rear license plate. Making my way to the rear. - [Jared] He's looking
for a rear license plate. How about your windows? Windows up or down? - [Doug] All windows are open. No tailgate, no license plate. - No license plate. - [Doug] It's white in color. - Windows are down. - [Doug] No windows at all. It is a Dodge. - So the good news is
the vehicle is clear. Windows are down. Nobody's inside. So, either insurance fraud
or a stolen pickup truck. - [Doug] 500. 500 All windows are open. - [Jared] Every window is opened. Confirmed it. - [Doug] The magnet is clipped. It's stuck on the front of the hood, so I'm gonna lave that where it's at. Oh, (indistinct). This is a Dodge Ram 2500 extended
cab, white in color. I have what would look like
a baby gator down here. I repeat, baby gator. - And he has a baby gator. - He's a little guy.
- Wrestle him. Wrestle the baby gator. - [Doug] All right, the driver's side, I cannot confirm if
there's anything in there. A lot of silt. I'm not detecting anything unordinary. Seat belt is in it's natural resting spot. I'm gonna begin my ascent topside. - [Jared] The Laramie edition, SLT. - There's an alligator. Alligator, a really small one. The magnet is right on
the top of the hood, so I didn't move it. The what? - The magnet is right
on the top of the hood, so I didn't move it. - [Jared] Okay, I'll pull it up when you're on the other one. (gentle music) - [Doug] I am on a vehicle. All right, I found it. I'm on it. It's an older blue truck. Left side wheel. Passenger side window is up. This is a single cab pickup
truck, blue in color. No passenger handle. We got a passenger window is up. Making my way down the passenger side. I repeat it is blue in color. - Confirmed, small passenger pickup truck, blue in color, passenger window up. - [Doug] Tailgate was down. No license plate. This has a blue stripe down
the tailgate in the middle. No license plate. I repeat, no license plate
on the rear or the front. - I think he said no license
plate on the rear or the front. - [Doug] There's a bed liner on it. The driver side window is up. Both windows are up. Rear cab window is up. Windshield is (indistinct). All windows are intact
in an upright position. - [Jared] All windows are in intact. - [Doug] We do have a Chevy. I repeat, we do have a Chevy. I'm gonna make my way topside. - [Jared] Okay, he's coming up. Confirm, you're coming topside. (gentle music) All right, so we need to call this one in and see what they wanna do with it? - Yep, yep. - That one, all windows open. That one, all windows closed. Like, obviously we don't
disturb the vehicles in that situation, but I looked for any other emblems. It's definitely two toned blue, white. - Okay, actually doing a search right now for anybody in Lakeland
that might be missing with a Chevy pickup truck. - Yeah, '92, '93 box style. It's like a half ton. I mean, three quarter ton truck. I would say it's been under there, Florida water's a little
bit different, 15 years. It's still in great condition
being under there that long. Just water down here is
a little bit different than what we're used to where it just eat a vehicle up. It's not really eating up like that. One of the door handles was ripped off. The other one was still hanging there. I don't know what that means, if somebody has cleared
these vehicles or not. - [Jared] I mean, you can't clear them if the windows are still up.
- Right, right. My guess is if that has
happened, a diver has dove on it, removed the plates, but they
never cleared the vehicle. In the instance, you
cannot clear a vehicle. It doesn't matter if you pull a plate and it comes back stolen. If you can't confirm the
contents of the vehicle, anybody could be dumped in that vehicle, or several people could
be dumped in that vehicle. So, when the windows are
up, you gotta remove them. I don't care how hard
it is to remove them. There could be answers sitting
right over there right now. - All right, I don't have
anything to pop up immediately as far as missing in Lakeland. Even Jan's not coming up when
I just do this generic search. - Their database, NCIC, they can put in different
characteristics of a vehicle and obviously do a better search than what we can as civilians. - [Haley] Polk County Sheriff's Office, this is Haley. - Hi, Haley, Jared Leisek,
Adventures With Purpose. Hey, we had a interaction with one of your officers this morning. We're in town doing a
underwater sonar search and recovery missing person's mission, trying to find Margaret Jan Shupe who went missing last April of 2021. Currently we're over at Christina Lake. We have identified two vehicles, and we have already put
a diver in the water. Neither vehicle is the
vehicle of Miss Shupe. However, we do have a vehicle that has all of the windows up. The other vehicle, we were able to clear. At this point, because the vehicle, the one with all the windows up, we do treat it as a crime scene, and we do request an officer, so we can identify what
you would like to do or what we can do to help
you with this vehicle. - [Haley] Okay, so you can't confirm that who you're looking for is in there, or you basically just
want a vehicle cleared? - No, what I'm saying is, of the two vehicles that we found, we know that neither one
of them is Miss Shupe that we're looking for today. Neither one of them is a Kia Soul. But what we have identified
is that we do have a vehicle that the windows are up on it, and we are not able to clear it. So we would like to bring
this to your attention and make sure that you identify what you would like done
with it at this point. Do you want our help? Do you just want to log it
and have an officer come down? What would you like us
to do at this point, because the vehicle has not been cleared? - Where is the vehicle parked at? - The vehicle is underwater,
10 feet underwater, about 45 feet offshore. - [Haley] About 45 feet offshore. And you guys are a dive team, correct? - Yes ma'am. - [Haley] Okay. - And so we've actually
identified two pickup trucks over here, both underwater,
both 45 to 50 feet offshore. One of them, we were able to clear while we were underwater diving on it, because all the windows are down. The second vehicle is
a Chevy pickup truck. We are not able to retrieve any tags, nor are we able to clear it,
because all the windows are up. We do treat it as a crime scene. So we have not broken any windows. - [Haley] Okay, so pickup truck, unable to retrieve a tag,
and all the windows are up, so you're unable to clear the vehicle? - Yes, ma'am. - Just so you know, we're
documentary filmmakers as well. So if you see cameras, don't
get weirded out with it. There's one there and one there. They're both less than 10 feet deep. This vehicle right
here, when I dove on it, it is a Dodge 2500, white. A few of the windows are down. I did my best to try to
identify if anyone was in it. I can't 100% do that on that one. One on this vehicle, all of the windows are up and it's sealed. Who knows what's inside of that vehicle or who is inside of it. To give you a general
background of who it is... Do you know who we are? So we're with Adventures With Purpose. We travel the country
investigating cold cases. So we are in town today investigating the cold case
of Margaret Shupe Smith who's been missing since
last April with her vehicle. We specialize in sonar. So we're able to detect
vehicles underwater. So we specifically investigate cases where people are missing
along with their vehicle. So in our search today, we
discovered these two vehicles. Without us being able to clear them, it's a pretty big issue. - Okay, and that one's the
white Dodge and that one's? - The blue Chevy. I was able to pull the grill off of it. There's no license plates on
either one of the vehicle. You guys only have rear
plates here, right? - Mhm.
- Yeah, so there's no plate on either end of these vehicles. - Okay. - And so now at this point,
because the windows are up, we do treat it as a crime scene. So that way, if you have any evidence or anybody inside of
it, we don't touch it. So we're here to offer up our services. If you have a tow truck and
you want us to help rig it, we can offer that up. If you have your own dive team, great, then we can step back and let you do that, or if it's just simply one of those things where you're like, hey,
Jared, you know what, at this point we just simply report it, and then we'll figure out
what to do with it from there. We just wanna make sure
we do our part properly to make sure that you're aware of it. - That one, do you know what it is? - It's a 90s model Chevy, three quarter ton pickup
truck, maybe a Silverado. It's two tone blue and white. We did our best to like
search the internet, but I know you guys have systems. You can put those in there and maybe see if they do (indistinct). - And neither have tags? - Neither have license plates at all. - I'm gonna call my supervisor,
see what he wants me to do. - Perfect, sounds good. Let us know if you need anything else. - Okay, thank you.
- You're welcome. - So the supervisor has the
dive commander here now. - Oh is that (indistinct)?
- Yeah. And they're going to determine
what they want to do with it. I explained that we have one
mark there and one mark there, and they may not deal with it today. They may not, but the dive commander here is at least gonna be able to identify exactly where they're at. So we have tomorrow
scheduled here as well. However, I don't know if we're able to identify any other areas of concern. Do you guys have any
other areas of concern like boat ramps? - I think think we need to... We're gonna look up the case number. And let's talk to detective
that it's assigned to. I think that's smart. - I mean, we're a great resource. Like if you guys want to
point us in a direction that we haven't searched, I'm all for it. (gentle music) - We now have new information
that Jan was in an accident about 30 minutes later
after she was last seen at Publix at Southgate. That wreck, nobody knows
where she went after that, but it takes us further to the North, which now that it takes us to, according to the dive commander, we have a couple of
other boat ramps up there that we're gonna go search
tomorrow, one being at Mud Lake, which is out and about
very quiet, very secluded. And so now if we're in the
mind of Jan, she's depressed, she's checking out. She's gonna go to a very quiet location. And maybe that's where
she was already heading. We don't know, but is this that one thing that put her over the edge? If you have not done so already, please be sure to subscribe. It is free, and turn on
that be notification, because it helps spread
awareness as to who we are and what we do, helping
these families for free. We are gonna be back tomorrow, and hopefully we can bring Jan home. (gentle music) Coming back in the day two of the search for Margaret Jan Shupe
Smith, she goes by Jan, we found some new information
out late last night as we were wrapping up with
the Sheriff's Department. In that we did not know that Jan, after she left a Publix
where she left her billfold, her stimulus check,
she was in an accident. So it wasn't 30 minutes
to the North of Publix. It was just 30 minutes
later after she left Publix. And it was at Malcolm and Socrum Loop Road is where it was at. - She's supposed to pick
up her daughter Marlie who worked at Crystals in the
Northern area of Lakeland. She never made it there. She was in a vehicular accident. I mean, who knows where
she went from there or why she was even up there. - And now, so that brings
us to this location here at Mud Lake. We're just trying to put
ourselves in her mind. Recently divorced, husband
of 30 years runs off, get's somebody else pregnant, ends up losing her stimulus
check and her wallet, ends up getting in an accident. Is she now just like,
this is the final straw that broke the camels back. The officer last night said,
"Hey, go check out Mud Lake. "It's still within our county. "It's in Polk County," but the thing about this is 33 takes you to the Northern part of Lakeland. It's more of a quiet, secluded location, even though you can't tell
with all the traffic going by, but this is nine o'clock at night, but this is off of the road. This is a quiet, private,
secluded boat ramp. We're gonna start our search here. If we don't find Jan here, we're gonna move a little bit
further down South of Malcolm where we have five, probably four, five additional boat ramps that we really wanna check out over there. - So with all that being said, we are really optimistic today with the new news we received last night that today's efforts are gonna pan out. - Let's see if we can
find Jan bring her home. (gentle music) (motor rumbles) Seven feet, plenty deep. Ooh, do we have a car right here? I don't know. Yeah, there's a six foot
hole, then back up to four. Yeah, there's the boat ramp plain as day. Just some weird stick at the
very end of the boat ramp, that's it. Not a car. All right, well, let's take a look at the
Lakes Gibson and a few others, and let's just kind of
separate for the day and go knock out some boat ramps. So we're gonna bring
Britain into this, Adam, as well as Nug, and let's kind of look at some of these additional boat ramps. Yesterday, you guys covered
Lake Parker boat ramp, as well as Lake Bonny boat ramp. We were over on Lake Hunter. We're gonna be a little bit
further to the North now right here on Lake Parker. We have two boat ramps kind of right here. So we have off of Grenada
Street and Lake Parker. And it's kind of into
like a little canal here is kind of what that one is. So I don't know how likely
that one's going to be. This one kind of brings
you a little bit closer into the lake. So if you guys want to
check out those two, and then we'll head over to
this one a little bit further to North here on Lake Gibson, which is just down the
road of her accident right here on Marcum and Socrum Loop. So we'll go check out Lake Gibson. And this one, same thing,
it's like in a little canal, but you never know if it's
gonna be in the canal, or I don't think it
made it out to the lake. Does that work for you guys? - Yep.
- Sounds good. - [Jared] All right, sounds good. I'll pin drop you this. - Okay.
- All right. - [Jared] And you guys
can start on these two. Appreciate you guys.
- Sounds good. - We're headed now Lake Gibson. We are actually, based on the information
that we have acquired, we're heading to the most
logical body of water to search. I'm not gonna use the word exciting, but I'm very optimistic with this where we're headed right now. Based on her last known
whereabouts being in that accident. Lake Gibson is the closest body of water. We started at Mud Lake this morning, because the Polk County Sheriff's Office, the Lieutenant, had a lot of concern with the location that we just left. So, I'm excited to report back to him when we do get our buoys
back from yesterday that, hey, that location's
completely clear. They don't have to worry
about that location. And it was logical why he
was concerned with that, 'cause it was out there, no eyes on it, really creepy desolate area where if you're dumping something or you're going to do something
to possibly commit suicide or hurt yourself, or
if it's foul play even, that was a logical out of the way area. - Now we also have the niece that stopped by last night and Bobby, and she sent me another text
late last night as well, said, "You know, Mud Lake is not really "within where I'm feeling
it," for her speaking, but she said Lake Gibson. Lake Gibson is what she
had expressed to me was make sure that we do check that one today. - Yeah, it makes sense. And a lot of times, man,
families' hunches are correct with their feeling. Like you say, like they've had more time to internalize this stuff and
make up their own thoughts and feelings as far as what
happened or where they might be. And some families have
been correct in the past with exactly where
their loved one was you. And into a family's intuitions, that's why when we come into them, the first thing we do is, what are the areas of your concern? You the family, what areas do
you want us to rule out first? And we always do that when
we're working with a family. We rule out their areas. And if we're unsuccessful,
then we come back to the five mile radius and the clues and a whole nother
target area of how it is we break things down. We are working with, I'm not gonna say it's credible, there's someone in the family
who's said that they paid to have a cell phone pinged. Jared and I have never
heard of that happening. - Cell phone being pinged, yes. - Paid for, paying to have
someone's cell phone ping. Is it possible? I don't know. We've never come into
that in any of these cases Typically law enforcement only gets access to those types of things. Supposedly the phone was
last pinged in Tampa, and this person paid to have it pinged. Why law enforcement didn't do that? I'm sure they did. So, I mean, is it credible information? We're on the fence about it? I mean, we're not saying
someone is lying to us, but unless we deem it like
super credible and whatnot, we can't just jump from here to Tampa based on that information. - When and where it was pinged as well. It was like, it wasn't actually
next to a body of water. It was within a-
- A neighborhood. - A neighborhood, yeah. And then we also don't have the vehicle that's been picked up on
any license plate readers. - Yes, right. If that vehicle would've left here, it would've went through Plant City. It would've went out to
Tampa, which is an hour away. They would've caught it. They would've caught it
several times on ALPRs. - And I don't know if we
discussed this yesterday or I know we haven't touched on it today, but while this took place on April 2nd for her leaving her billfold at Publix, for her getting in an
accident 30 minutes later to the North, what we then have
is a report that was taken, and I wanna say it was
on April 14th or 15th, almost two weeks later, come to find out it was her sister's car. So her sister reported the car stolen. And I think that maybe that was just so they could
officially put the car in the system to get it in the NCIC. - Yep, that was a
formality in the scenario. She went missing with somebody else's car. It also helps them target
the NCIC federal system, so that if it comes up anywhere, you can't do anything with the car. If the car goes to get worked on and the VIN number's entered at a dealership, it's gonna come up. - Yep, and she did report the car stolen only specifically for that one day. She did not report that her
car had ever been stolen any other time or used unlawfully. - Right. And it makes sense. She was using her sister's car. She was in the process of going through like a really horrific divorce. Like she was married to her
husband for three decades. - [Jared] I'm gonna just turn around. Hey, what up?
- What up? This looks like a heavily regulated park. It says boat ramp, but I'm not even seeing a
boat ramp at this place, but it's gated. It's really nice. Not really thinking this is a place where she could have crashed. - All right, well, yeah. I mean, look around, see if you can identify a boat ramp, and then head over to that other one. Same thing with this one. It's like a small canal. I don't think she's in this one either. So we're gonna look at some
other water in the area, see if there's any other boat ramps. - See what the magnet does is allows us to be a little bit more
efficient with what we're doing if we suspect a body of water is shallow. So we can just come over
here, toss the magnet in, give us a really easy
idea if it is shallow. If it's deeper, do we need
to put a boat in with sonar? At this point, putting
a boat in right here isn't gonna do anything. And there's no objects. If a vehicle goes in here,
it's not floating downstream. What? Oh way too shallow. It's like three feet at the most. And when you look down the canal, you can see there's a slight uprising, which right in front of the boat ramp is probably just dredged out just enough to get a bigger canoe,
smaller boat in there. So, with this one being ruled out, this is the most logical body of water near where she was verified last, her last known whereabouts. Where do we go from here? - The only thing, and I mean, dead last, the only thing I have left is, why was she heading North up here? And with Google, and I
don't know how old this is, but we have just North
of that intersection, I have a pond on the right. I have a pond on the left. I have another little pond on the left. I don't even think they're deep enough. And it looks like maybe
a housing development was going in there, and they're just little retention ponds. That's like my last shot. I don't have anything else to even go to. Do we go up there? So, I mean, we can drive
to the North right here. We can put eyes on it, but yeah. - Let's go. I mean, that's the last
ditch effort in this. I mean, we have to go
put eyes on it at least to rule it out. Is it feasible? I mean, is that definitely
suspecting foul play? I mean, at this point,
- No, it's on purpose, - Ruling anything out.
- But if this subdivision is still empty like this also it's like, hey, on purpose, I'm
driving straight into it. - Then you also have
to know about that too. - Yeah. And like I said, I mean, it's four blocks from the accident location. Should we go there? - Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is definitely a tough one when you're just completely
hitting dead ends, and we're not coming up with anything, but we did find two cars yesterday, I mean, but, they're not
the car we're looking for, but I would think as many boat
ramps that have been here, we would've run into more cars. I do know a lot of the water,
though, is shallow like here, like where we left earlier this morning. It's just too shallow. If a car goes in, the Sheriff's Department is
gonna be notified right away, 'cause it's gonna be visible. - [Jared] Yeah. So this next location
is 1.9 miles up here. But once we get up here, it's only gonna be four blocks from that accident though, hit location. I'll point that out once we get up here. - [Doug] Okay, yeah, it's
right here at the corner. - [Jared] So here's the corner. - [Doug] So the accident
happened at this intersection, and then they pulled into this church, and that's where the officer
that responded did the report. - [Jared] At the Together
Church right here? - Yeah.
- All right. So then that keeps her on
the North side of this road, which then now we're
going just a few blocks straight to the North up here. Are we coming up here, do we know, and we just looking at the bodies of water now that we're just at our whits end? I don't know. (gentle music) I'm stumped. Okay, so you leave the church, drive through here, construction truck entrance. That subdivision has a gate. This one sneaks you up here to
a nice, quiet, dead end area. Private property, slow children. - [Doug] Pick up some speed. - Okay, so they're starting
to build some homes up here. So you have one body of water back there, a couple more back here. We have another one over here, but now this body of water over here is now surrounded by homes. So look right back in here
like three houses down. But those homes have been
there more than a year. So we have another one at the very end of the road down here. - [Doug] Yeah, it's not that old. I mean, it's within a year or so. - Private property. Pond use for residents only. I mean, I just don't see her flying passed the house right here. - I don't either. I don't think it's logical. - No, 'cause on the map it shows that none of these houses were here. All these houses have been
here more than a year. Hey, when were these
houses completed here? - [Resident] Our house
was completed August. - August. - They probably started
getting completed in like - Probably May.
- May. - And I think they built this
when they built the houses. - Okay.
- So I don't- - Yeah, 'cause it's on the map. So it's been on the map for a while. So we're looking for a missing persons that went missing in April of 2021. And so all these were completed
like at the same time? - Yeah.
- Okay. - This road just got
finished turn of the year. The construction manager
had to get them all done by January 1st. So these ones were, I
guess, the newer ones. - [Jared] Okay. (gentle music) (motor rumbles) - [Doug] You never know unless
you put a boat in, right? - Yep. Six and a half feet. Seven feet. Plenty deep out here. Come straight off the
next 20, 30 feet here. Plenty deep six feet, six and a half. - [Doug] We're also talking
about a green car too, so it's gonna blend in with the... - [Jared] Right there. Are you kidding me? We have a car right there. - [Doug] Wow. - Yo, we have a car. Right there at the (indistinct). Into the road right here. It's gonna be right here. (compelling music) Right there. - [Doug] It's look like
tracks right there. What is that? - It's a car. That is in the shape. Dude, I think we just found Jan. (compelling music) - [Doug] He's standing on it. And the color of the vehicle being green would explain why it
hasn't been noticed here. The water itself is green. - It's like a hatchback back. There's no trunk. - Yep.
- Yep. We're looking for a Soul,
which is a hatchback. - Very small car. Very small.
- Yep. - It's super hard to see. - [Doug] The Kia emblem should be right on the back of the hatch. - Okay, I'm currently on the hood, roof. Super tiny car. - [Doug] License plate's
gonna be on the back. Florida only has a rear plate. We're looking for a license
plate is gonna be JLQA90. - Can't see, but I have a license plate. Can you guys give me a tool to rip it off?
- Yep. - Can you get a visual on it? - It's just so, so green.
- Yeah. - The water, I mean, not the color yet. (Doug exhales) I do believe it's a Kia. I do believe it's a Kia. I'll grab the license plate. It is so new, the plate
won't come off easily. - [Doug] Right. That's expected. Can you see the first digits of the plate? - I'm gonna look. (compelling music) - JLQ. - We just found Jan. Her license plate is JLQA90.
- Jared. - JLQ.
- Confirmation. - We have confirmation,
this is our vehicle. Okay. - [Man] Yes, sir. - Hey, we have confirmation,
this is our vehicle. Do you want to call it in, or
do you want us to call 911, or what do you want to have done? - [Man] Naw, naw, I'll handle it. It's the Kia Soul? - Yes, sir, we have a
license plate confirmation. - [Man] Let me pull it up real quick. Give me just a second. Did y'all check the interior? - No, all the windows are up, right, Josh? - Yeah, it's untouched. It's in really good condition. - Yeah, it is on its wheels. All the windows are up. - [Man] Okay, what's the tag. - Tag number?
- JLQ. - JLQ.
- That's all I got. - JLQ.
- That's it. - Yeah, JLQ is-
- No, that's it. Okay, and you're at that pin you sent me. - Yes, sir. - [Man] All right, I'll
call you right back, but no, you don't need to call. I'll call it in. - All right, cool, thanks.
(man murmurs) Bye bye.
- All right, see ya. - This is all due to not just our effort, but a community effort. The Polk County Sheriff's
Department came out yesterday, and they were an open book with us. They supported us. They used us as a resource. They shared the information that they had. We then digested that. And it that's what brought us here today. We've been here for two days, but without the local
law enforcement's help, and them using us as a
resource and embracing us, that's the community effect
that's gonna lead this family to having answers. This was desolate. This really doesn't even make any sense that she even knew this existed. This is all off the beaten path. Who knows. The Sheriff Department is
gonna have to determine the circumstances
surrounding it from here, but this just makes no sense. - No, it makes perfect sense. It's a straight road from
our last known location. How many times do we come
into something like this where it's been a straight
road, last known location. This is not the first time- - But this is something that
is possibly only weeks old. Like how did she know about this? - I don't know. - [Josh] Yeah, 'cause this was dug out, this water wasn't always here. - Well, and you saw the
road that we came down. I mean it was a side
dirt road, sandy road, to get down into here. The subdivision just to the East over here is a gated subdivision. I mean, this is brand new on the map. This is one of those ones
where the the PD's gonna have to do with their investigation, and we may never have those answers. (gentle music) So these houses were completed in August. - Yep. - And she went missing in April. Straight off the end
right where the buoy's at. Yeah, we did Mud Lake based
on recommendations last night from your crew. We also did Gadsden. - Gibson.
- Gibson. But I mean, that's just
a shallow canal there. They went down by the dog park as well. Everything was shallow. And then just came back to
the clues of the intersection where she had the accident, being hey pulled off into
the church parking lot. And again, coming back
to the 59 years old, mental state, husband just had a kid with somebody else after 30 years. Why is she this far North
on this side of town? And this was our last ditch effort. Like on Google Maps, none
of the houses were here. The ponds were fresh. - Yeah, makes sense. - Yep. - Because we didn't stop
is why we solved this, because there was a
sense of community here. Had the Sheriff's Department
not been cooperative with us, we would not have solved this. 100% credit to the Sheriff's Department, everybody that helped us. It's a community effort. This is what when you're out trying to accomplish the impossible
and you're relentless, this is what happens. You're able to uncover everything that nobody else has been able to uncover. - So, we have identified that we have the vehicle in question. We have the partial plate
that we did to read. We did not pull the plate off, 'cause we were just
doing a free dive on it. The windows are currently up, and we put the phone call in immediately, 'cause I had already had you earlier. - Did you see inside?
- No. - (indistinct) So it's
all sealed up, you can't- - Yep. - It's on its wheels, easy pull. The buoy itself is here maybe
18 inches under the surface to the top of the vehicle. - Okay, so it's not too deep. - Yep. Sir, how you doing?
- How you doing? - Jared.
- Jason, nice to meet you, buddy.
- It's pleasure to meet you. - So is that the buoy I'm
assuming is marking it? - Yep, and it's 18 inches
below the surface there to the top of the car. - Okay. All right, the rest of the team should be showing up here
shortly. So we'll get started. - Excellent, sounds good. (gentle music) - [Reporter] They found two
cars unrelated to her case, but either way, they
called Polk County deputies who actually alerted them to
a better location for Smith, (gentle music) bringing them to this pond inside a newly renovated
community, Hunter's Crossing. (gentle music) - Her daughter, Marlie Shupe, says her mom was supposed to pick her
up from work last April, but she never showed up. She says she doesn't know
what her mom was doing in the area, but says she had pre-dementia and would sometimes get lost. (gentle music) After months of searching
for her without answers, a family friend reached
out to the YouTube group, Adventures With Purpose. They managed find the
car in just two days. (gentle music) The family believes Margaret
Jan Smith was inside this Kia found at the bottom
of a pond in Lakeland. The Sheriff's office
needs more information before identifying the body, but they say that car belonged to Smith. (gentle music) - [Reporter] Police had been
searching for this woman for 10 months. They came up with nothing. And then this group, Adventures
With Purpose shows up, they searched for two
days in Lakeland, Florida, went to several different bodies of water looking for the woman. Her name is 59 year old Jan Smith. They were about to be done, and they decided let's search
one final body of water, and that is when they
discovered the woman's Kia SUV. It was just 18 inches below
the surface of the water. Sadly, that woman was inside the SUV, but still her family says, at least, this brings them some closure. (gentle music) - Well, as far as the outcome of the day, I just wanna say that
our thoughts and prayers and condolences are with
you and your family. It's something that's very
heavy, and it's very bittersweet. - [Relative] Thank you, Doug. - At this point, we just wanna let you know that. As far as her last mind state, like was there any lead on to any type of possible dementia or? - [Relative] Yeah, she did have pre... She was pre-dementia.
- She was pre-dementia. - [Relative] And she
couldn't see good at night when she drove, 'cause she
was supposed to have glasses, but her friend's son's dog
got a hold of her glasses and broke and she never
went and got a new pair. So she couldn't see at
night when she drove, and she didn't have glasses. And she was supposed to wear glasses. - And the location where we're at, this community, they were
just laying the foundation for these homes. These homes where we're standing
were finished in August. So in July, these homes weren't
here, the pond was here. This was just a really, really
tragic dead end dirt road that ended directly into a pond. - [Relative] I think
maybe she took a turn, and I think that she
got lost and took a turn and maybe didn't notice the road ended. And then maybe she drove
into the pond and panicked or didn't know how to get out. - Right, right, and then
that's very unfortunate, and it's somewhat common
for dementia patients to end up somewhere where
they're not familiar with and end up making a wrong
turn, being confused. - [Relative] Well, the deputy said when she got into the
accident on Marcum Road, he had no clue that she was
in the right state of mind. She was fine. - Yeah, I saw that. I saw that in their case notes, but they're just being very vague just as far as their
good health, cognizant. To them, it's very a vague statement that they leave in those case files. They're only concerned with,
is this person a public threat? Do they have the ability
to take care of themselves? They don't really know the
particulars that you knew. The 100% identification cannot be made until a medical examiner
goes through this process. But at this point, we
do know it's confirmed to be her vehicle, and there unfortunately is
remains inside of the vehicle. The homicide and special
investigations unit will be in touch once that
exact identification is made. They're probably gonna reach
out to you here very shortly to try to identify her dentist and/or other personal characteristics, so they can make a better identification. So, somebody will be in touch
with you pretty quickly. - [Relative] You guys
have a heart of gold, and I appreciate you.
- Thank you. - [Relative] I just wanted
say thank you so much. - Yeah, thank you guys for
watching and supporting. It's what makes this possible, 100%. I can't thank you guys
enough for supporting us and you reaching out to us. And I'm just glad that
in a bittersweet way that this was successful
for you and your family, 'cause now you know.
- I know. I wish I was there. I would just give a big ole hug for you. - I'd give you a hug. I'm hugging you right now. - [Relative] Thank you. - Yeah. This is bittersweet,
but this is our purpose. Thank you for your service to our country. Like I told her, it's answers. To be able to move forward and be successful at doing that, you gotta have the answers. Without the answers, it's a lost journey. And with the answers, it's a
completely different story. - See, Jan's sister wasn't getting any answers from
anybody she was talking to. - Yeah. It's tragic to lose somebody. And you struggle with not
knowing and you build a wall. You build a wall and you
decide to live and cope with that wall of an not knowing, and anything threatening that wall, you just don't want any part of, like I don't need to go back to that. I don't need to relive that. I'm trying to move forward. And to a lot of people,
this is very farfetched. The outcome of this is very farfetched, but, luckily and thankfully, now we can help her tear down that wall, and she could move on in a healthy way. We continue to run into
dementia patients or people that have the onset of
dementia that end up in water. The statistics say that 4%
of people end up in water when they go missing from dementia. And why, it's just really baffling, because time after time again, we are solving cases due
to accidental locations from dementia patients. It's something I can't describe it. I'm not a doctor, and
I'm not sure anybody can, but hopefully the more that
we do of these dementia cases, we can understand more. - I don't know where the car
was and how it was located, but there was no houses out here. Just a road.
- No, this was a bare foundation.
- She just drove straight off into it. - This is a bare foundation. Makes no sense for anybody to
even know that this existed. And based on the fact of onset
of dementia, being confused, being on a road you
think may lead somewhere and you can't see, you can't see at night, I can see coming down here, it's dark, and you don't know it drops off. You don't know it drops off, and she dropped off right into there. And I can firmly believe that this is nothing short of an accident. - It's an accident.
- Just an accident. - That's what it sounds like to me. - Well, we're gonna get over here. We're gonna pack up the rest of our stuff. We have another case to
work here in a couple days. We got a case in Naples, and we have stuff to
take care of in Tampa, so that's where we're headed now. If you guys need anything,
just let us know. - Thank you.
- Yeah. - You're very welcome.
- You guys too. - Thank you, sir.
- Appreciate you. (gentle music)
