The divers on the Adventures with Purpose YouTube channel found Margaret "Jan" Shupe Smith's green Kia Soul submerged in six feet of water.
10 Tampa Bay / YouTube
Divers from the YouTube channel Adventures with Purpose last week helped Florida police get closer to solving a 10-month old cold case involving a missing woman.
In a February 2 video posted to their YouTube channel, Josh Cantu and Carson McMaster said they found the car of Margaret "Jan" Shupe Smith in a pond, submerged under more than six feet of water. Police later confirmed a body was found in the vehicle but have not yet identified the person.
"At this time, the body has not been confirmed to be the missing woman," Brian Bruchey, a public information officer at Polk County Sheriff's Office, told Insider. "We are awaiting results from a DNA test. However, the body was found in the vehicle from Ms. Smith's missing person case, and wearing the same type of clothes that Ms. Smith was wearing at the time of her disappearance."
Smith, 59, was last seen in Lakeland, Florida, on April 2 last year. She was said to have been driving home around 7:30 p.m. when she disappeared. Her friends and family were left wondering what had happened her her, and local police hadn't been able to locate her or her green Kia Soul.
According to the local outlet WFLA, one of Smith's family members reached out to Adventures with Purpose for help in figuring out what happened. The YouTube channel was was founded by Jared Leisek in 2019 as a way to clean up lakes and rivers, but the team has since shifted focus and has so far helped to solve 19 cold cases, Leisek told CNN.
In the February 2 video, Cantu and McMaster said they initially had little information about Smith's disappearance. After they found two unrelated vehicles in a body of water, local police told them they weren't looking in the right place, they said.
Police said Smith had gone missing near a local church further north near where she had been in a minor car accident earlier in the day. In the video, McMaster said they found a "little pond" and decided to search in it, but the visibility was very poor.
"I remember thinking there's no way this vehicle [is] in this little tiny pond," he said.
However, after a while, one member of the team found a vehicle, and McMaster said he got "instant chills."
"I knew we may have just located Jan," he said.
Cantu said he checked the car's license plate number, and that's when "everything changed."
The team said they called police, who later confirmed a body was found inside the car. Authorities are working to identify the remains found inside.
"I am so grateful for them and that's a wonderful thing that they do – going all over and finding people. I didn't think we'd ever find her," Vera Shupe, Smith's sister told WFLA. "I didn't want to waste their time because they've been looking for her for 10 months."
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in a press release that this was "a tragic accident, and our prayers are with the family."
"We're grateful for 'Adventures with Purpose' working with us in locating the vehicle," he said.
Shortly after the vehicle was pulled from the pond, signage was put up on the nearby street that warned drivers the "Road Ends in Water," according to WFLA.
