Officials say the car is probably from the late 1970s
PAULDING -- You could say the much anticipated vehicle recovery in Bond Lake near Paulding was anti-climactic.
It took a Michigan State Police dive team over five hours to pull out the submerged car, which was floated 14 feet to the surface using 4,000 pounds of compressed air bags.
The result? An old, crumbling Chevy Caprice from the late 1970s and a lot of unanswered questions.
"(There are) no details of the car, who owned it where it came from...we don't know if it was abandoned or if any foul play was involved," says Sergeant Donald Horn of the Wakefield Michigan State Police.
The car was discovered by construction crews working on a nearby dam on May 23. They managed to pull a license plate off the car, which wasn't much help either.
"We did run the plate. It came back; no record, because it was so old," Sergeant Horn says.
Dive team members from the U.P., Alpena, Hart, Lansing, and Rogers City were all called in for the operation. They found the car right side up on the bottom of the lake, which means that the water had to be shallower than ten feet when it went in, but that's all they can tell from its position.
"I have no idea, that car was far gone. I would only be guessing at how it came to be down there," says Steven Derusha of the Michigan State Police, who served as the Dive Master for the recovery.
Michigan State Police looked in and around the car once it was pulled out, only to find lots of mud and debris.
At this point, one rumor that can be put to rest is whether or not there was a dead body in the car. Michigan State Police say they don't see anything inside the vehicle, but they need to look further.
The car has been towed to a secure garage in Ewen, where evidence technicians will search the vehicle for more answers.
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