CUYAHOGA COUNTY, Ohio — An Illinois dive team was searching the Cuyahoga River for a missing father when they came across several other vehicles instead.
Chaos Divers has been searching for answers across the U.S. since 2019.
The group’s services of search and rescue are cost-free for families in need.
Chaos Divers Manager and full-time diver Lindsay Bussick said they’ve successfully brought 18 people home to their families in the last three years.
They’re hoping to do the same in Ohio.
“That's one promise that we make to every family and we have always kept that. We will keep searching until they are found or until the family says that's enough,” Bussick said.
Chaos Divers were alerted of a missing father, Calvin ‘Bubb’ Jones.
“Our sole purpose for coming to Cleveland was to search for Calvin,” Bussick said.
According to Jones’ family, he was last seen driving a 2011 Chevy Impala in August.
Chaos Divers Founder and full-time diver Jacob Grubbs and Bussick set on a mission across several bodies of water in Northeast Ohio, including the Cuyahoga River.
The search began on Oct. 20, according to Bussick.
Sonar showed two anomalies 13-16 feet under the Cuyahoga River. One anomaly appeared to be an SUV, and the other was seemingly a truck, but they’d soon find out their guesses were wrong.
On Oct. 21, the Chaos Divers returned to the spot where those anomalies were located.
“There are two Jeep Grand Cherokees, the same exact body style, the same exact everything,” Grubbs said in a Chaos Divers video on social media.
Grubbs managed to pull a license plate off the one jeep but was unable to retrieve the other. The one license plate shows Ohio tags with July 2023 expiration tags.
“Both were facing the same direction [and] pointing towards the shore, upside down, less than five feet apart,” Grubbs explained. “I've never seen the same type of vehicle, dark in color, upside down with the same kind of features on it. It was odd.”
He added both vehicles had all windows rolled down and trunk doors open when he found the pair.
“It's definitely not uncommon to see windows down. A lot of vehicles that get put in the water are insurance frauds. They sink quicker. I don't know about these two Jeeps but with the hatchbacks both being open like that unless it was a safety feature on the new Jeeps. I don't know if they sense water and pop open on their own, but it was odd. It looked like they were both put there for fraudulent reasons,” Grubbs stated.
Bussick phoned the Cleveland Police Department to report the discovery shortly after.
In a video posted to the Chaos Divers' social media, a Cleveland dispatcher said officers would check out the location and determine what would follow.
However, Cleveland Police Department spokesperson Sergeant Wilfredo Diaz said the Ohio Department of Natural Resources planned a training exercise to recover the two vehicles weeks prior.
On Tuesday, the exercise resulted in both jeeps being extracted from the Cuyahoga River.
I asked for updates on the discovery of the two vehicles, but the Cleveland Police Department was unavailable Wednesday afternoon. Sgt. Diaz said more information regarding our questions would be provided Thursday.
“We do know everything is being analyzed currently,” Bussick said.
Bussick and Grubbs said an additional three vehicles were found in Cleveland water.
“It was less than a day that we had actually found the Jeeps. We found the Jeeps and then another car the first day and then we found the fourth car on our last day, last hour of searching,” Grubbs stated.
Bussick said Chaos Divers had traveled to Cleveland before, where a fifth car was located during that trip.
“It's still there. We were able to still see that on the sonar,” she said.
I also asked the Cleveland Police Department about the three additional vehicles found and if those were linked to any cases. No information was provided Wednesday night.
Bussick said from what she’s been told, one of the vehicles not included in the Tuesday extraction is linked to a crime but not a missing person.
This is a developing story News 5 will continue to follow through on.
As for the Chaos Divers, the team runs on private donations. If you’re interested in contributing to their missions, CLICK HERE.
