Investigators unravel mystery around six bodies found in lake

Forensic investigators are combing through a trove of evidence, discovered by accident this week in a lake in western Oklahoma.

Investigators already have clues, but that confirming the identities of the bodies, and how they got there, will be no easy task.

Jimmy Williams was once photographed in front of his bright blue 1969 Camero, bought six days before he disappeared. It was a sweet driving muscle car that would have been the envy of any teenager.

Now, that car is believed to be one of the cars found at the bottom of Foos Lake in western Oklahoma, but now it's a corroded, jelly-like carcass.

It was one of two cars found this week, and in all, the cars contained six bodies.

When Williams and two other teenaged friends disappeared in 1970, his family spread missing person's posters all over their hometown of Sayre, OK, offering a $500 reward. The teens were believed to either be on their way to a football game or on a hunting expedition, no one really knows, but investigators did uncover two corroded rifles from the car.

Investigators say they have not ruled out foul play yet, but the suspect these six victims accidentally drowned when their cars rolled back into the water.

The cars were discovered by a team of divers with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. Darrell Splawn with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said he and his colleagues were testing some new equipment. It wasn't until the cars were pulled out of the water, that the gruesome and mysterious discovery was made.

"It could have been a shoe, but whenever we brought them up to the shore, that was when the door was opened and you could see the skeletal remains in them," said Splawn.

John Alva Porter is believed to be one of the victims in the second car. He and two friends were last seen driving a 1950s Chevy when they disappeared in 1969, a year before the teenagers went missing.

His granddaughter Debbie McManaman says her family used to look out onto this water and wonder if their grandfather was in the lake.

"Even since I've been married and an adult we would come up here and say maybe grandpa is in the lake you know maybe that's where he's at," asked McManaman.

A random thought by one man's family could have turned out to be oddly prophetic.

Friday 20 September 2013

http://www.kplctv.com/story/23481415/investigators-unravel-mystery-around-six-bodies-found-in-lake