WE FOUND HER CAR 50 DAYS LATER – Christina Murphy’s Story

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Uh-huh.

Um, I got that from a friend of mine that’s in Search and Rescue and she used to work for the Forest Service.

And so, she said this is going to be your best bet.

They update it daily to see what the flow is.

And when I had talked to Brian from Search and Rescue a couple of weeks ago, um he had said that they were going to stop part of the flow for Labor Day weekend because we get a lot of drownings and everything up here because of the river.

Yeah.

Um, and he said that they’re going to keep the flow down and he said the river should be extremely lower by the 15th.

So, the Search and Rescue was going to go out again on the 15th.

Okay.

To see what, you know, if it would be a better view.

So, so I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes and we need, you know, cuz last I heard also the Sheriff is like, “Nope, nobody else is coming uh coming.

” And I just need to make sure that we’re not dealing with egos and hurt feelings and that I’m, you know, I don’t want it to appear as though we’re coming in playing cowboy on this and be like, you know, “F you guys, we’re going to do it regardless.

” Right.

Okay.

Um, like I said, I can try and see what I can do.

I can call that officer back.

Okay.

Um, you know, and see if I or I can, you know, maybe just try and call dispatch to see if they would, you know, put a call into the sergeant.

Right.

All right, let me know.

Let me see what I can do and make some phone calls and then um yeah, I will give you a call back.

For families who have all but given up on finding their loved ones, this team is a last hope.

To a new phenomenon, civilian divers cracking cold cases for free.

We just finished up breakfast.

We’re now meeting up with Tina, who is the one that we just had the phone call with that we just that we just shared with you.

She’s going to take us over to the bridge the crash location.

We’re going to see if we can spot the vehicle with drone and just kind of get an idea of what our game plan’s going to be in searching for Christina.

Do you need to pull my seat up or you good? Oh, you’re perfectly fine.

Yesterday we were on the phone talking about work families versus growing up families and so watching her come up through the ranks in your profession from the CNA to what’s kind of the different stages and how long have you known her? Um ooh, she was in her very early 20s.

She worked like I said on skilled nursing as a CNA and then for a few years and then when she as an LVN she worked as an LVN.

I want to say like four years four or five years before she went to RN school.

So that’s the tough you know kind of the rank goes to climbing the the ladder.

So how long has she been a part of your family? Oh.

I would say 20 years.

Oh, wow.

You know, from like I said, the time that she was a CNA over on skill, um, was very bad with timing, but um maybe like 2009.

Somewhere around there.

How’s this hitting you and, you know, the other nurses up at the hospital? It’s very hard.

Um, she, like I said, is definitely missed.

Um, she was a great nurse.

Um, her bedside manner was great.

Um, she was very fun.

Um, and she just just the absence of her is very hard for us to deal with Mhm.

at work.

And and the location is we’re coming up to it right here but before the bridge, right? Yeah, it’s before the bridge.

So, when we start seeing the cones a little bit after this tree brush right here is where we believe that the entry point was.

And where we believe the vehicle is right about here.

Okay.

So, but I’ll turn around and park over here then we can walk across the All right.

We believe somewhere where this like flat area kind of is here, the smoother area I should say, Yep.

is where we possibly think that it’s at.

Um like I said, these rocks, all of these rocks were not even exposed.

Right.

All of these rocks came up within the last couple of weeks.

Okay.

This is where like all the license plate and all of this stuff was found down there.

Okay.

And and so we were speaking earlier and and we’ll bring everybody into the uh scene is where we’re at right now.

She normally would be heading back up to Ridgecrest and which is to the east.

Accidentally misses the turn or or for whatever reason, overshoots it.

She’s a little frustrated, just had a argument with her boyfriend.

Uh so, isn’t thinking clearly.

Ends up on westbound instead.

Comes down here, she’s going to turn around, but ends up veering off.

And then, you guys started an investigation the next day when she was supposed to show up for work.

So, she goes missing around 1:00 am Between 1:00 and 2:00.

Okay.

Yes.

And then, around 10:00 am is when she’s supposed to show up to for work.

Something’s not right.

And now, you and your friend, you you grab her and say, “We need to go looking for her.

” Yeah.

Get in the car, drive around.

Like I said, looking for her vehicle, looking for if she’s at certain people’s houses, um fishing spots that she liked to fish.

Cuz she didn’t fish the river, she fished the lake.

So, we drove around the lake.

And then, like I said, it was a couple of hours.

We said we had to head back to work.

Um we called a couple of friends, you know, to see if they had heard from her.

No one had heard from her.

Um and we like I said, we saw the sheriff at the gas station.

We were headed back to work, and that’s when we found the missing person report.

And then, somebody gets a hold of the daughter’s cell phone that has Find My Phone on it.

Yes.

And identifies, “This is the last location where she was last pinged.

” This stuff was kind of that was in question.

But, we believe she entered See where the Oh, yeah, you can see the tire track right here.

So, I think she just hugged it right here.

Yep.

And then, like I said, where that awning pieces, that’s where we believe um she hit that rock because there was marks on the rock.

Uh-huh.

And that believe that’s where she just she launched in.

I’m really Yeah, I’m really surprised it didn’t get stuck up right here.

With these big rocks here.

That’s why I’m saying she was probably at an extreme speed.

Yeah.

And then, her bag was found floating in the river.

A bag that she kept in the back of her car Uh-huh.

was found.

And um the windshield was found I want to say in this general area.

So, this is that two-story house.

Yeah.

That’s the guy that said he’d heard something at 2:00 in the morning.

Yeah, you think he would hear something like that.

Especially if she hit the rocks, oh it would be loud.

Got up, of course, looked around.

He said he didn’t see anything.

Yeah.

Yeah, that’s tough to say.

Look at that Look at it.

Oh, damn.

It’s really square.

I think it’s it.

I think that’s it.

That looks man-made to me.

It lo- It looks skinnier, though.

Well, you go down, it looks pretty big size-wise.

Yeah, cuz it almost looks like a ridges right there, huh? Yeah.

To me, that looks like a man-made something man-made.

If not, is it another vehicle that possibly went off the road at some point? Almost looks like a boat, though.

Like the like those are rails on the boat.

Or Ah.

Oh, you know what? Back at back of the 4Runner, the uh ski racks up on top and the hood is flipped up from the front like this.

Is that the hood that’s flipped up? Yes, from the crash.

Yep.

Right there.

I think you’re right.

You guys did some good investigating work to find all this.

With 50 days and like no Facebook postings, no news, like I think a lot of people were trying to keep it from the kids, you know, to a certain degree.

I mean, some people were posting on Facebook about, you know, rest in peace and this and that, and then they would get backlash from the Ridgecrest side of people, you know, saying don’t put that on there.

We don’t know.

And I’m like, if you look at the overall, I mean, we we I know she’s in there.

It’s a matter of finding her.

So, I would assume that all the airbags have blown, Yep.

which is what’s kept her in there.

And she said she always wore her seatbelt.

Yeah.

I believe it was right here, right? If I was to put in right here, Yep.

or over on the other side, now it funnels into this chute, and I’ve got a lot of water pressure coming through here.

Yes.

And so, you would come through here, and then you would whip in behind the car.

That’s not the right way to do it.

Because we already have a natural eddy right here.

Yep.

See you how I’ve got everything swirling? It’s actually kicking back upstream.

Yep.

I’ll just come in nice and low right here, Yep.

and see if I can work my way right across to it in this eddy, so I’m in that eddy and that eddy, and I should only be crossing over a flow maybe 24 in.

Right here is where I want to come in and out out right here.

Yep.

So, what we’re going to do is we’re going to do a line off to the tree right here, Yep.

so that way I can use it to get in and out right here.

Yes.

I want to make sure that you guys have life jackets on Okay.

at the river here, Yep.

so that way if you happen to Yeah, just the regular boat ones.

And then let’s go assess the vehicle, and if I can get up to the side windows, if I can identify she’s in there, and great.

If not, then we’ll come up with a game plan as to rigging, and What about hey, just an idea, what about running I mean, you probably don’t want to get tangled in it but running a line just down the river just in case you slip off you got something that you can grab onto down there.

Nope, slipping off is not a problem at all.

I have a lot of space to just simply move over into this You do? Yeah, into the back eddy in the current.

So, I don’t have any issue with that.

I’m in there.

I’m just going to just go around the tree attached to itself.

You want to put it in on the other one? Damn it, just put it on the bike.

I’ve got the stuff off the gate.

That way first we go this way.

Got something to attach it to that tree.

Okay.

Try to find a sturdy spot on that tree, yeah.

The base of that right there.

Yep.

You know what I think? I’m going to skip this one so that way I don’t have 25 ft of line that I’m going to get tangled up in it.

That’s a nice stick shot on that one.

So, we can skip that.

Yeah, we already did.

Is it a braided line? Yep.

It’s not good.

Okay.

It’s stuck down there.

Okay.

All right.

Well, you know, it’s got to be a fish right there.

Cuz that’s good.

Now, damn, you got a lot of horse power through here.

Look at the rooster tail All right.

Look at the rooster tail right there.

We got a little bit of a rooster tail.

We got a good rooster tail right there.

Look at the rooster tail right there.

All right.

Nice.

Look at the rooster tail.

All right.

Now we got a rooster Look at the area we got going.

All right.

All right.

Look at the rooster tail.

All right.

Look at the rooster tail on this wheel.

A lot of horse power coming through now.

We want to see the rooster tail again.

Keep seeing it up there.

We want to see the rooster tail.

All right, I can’t cross this yellow line.

Right in the back seat.

All right, let’s try going around this time.

You might be able to get up on this side.

No, too much water.

All right, come on.

It’s sitting like this going this way, so the front is up here.

Yeah.

Yep, and the back of the car is back there.

All right, I was able to make it to the vehicle.

The vehicle is facing upstream as we had thought.

Um besides, I can’t get to the sides to get into the front driver seat to verify whether she’s in there or not.

She’s not in the very rear.

Does not appear to be in the middle seat, either.

It’s really dark down there.

I have about 5 ft of visibility, but because it’s dark and the the way the lights go down there, I can’t get a direct beam shot to the front to see if she’s in there.

There appears to be an object of some sort that’s in the middle.

Um What? A bag of clothes.

Her bag of clothes? She had a bag of clothes with her.

It’s a larger item.

It’s, you know, your It’s kind of bulky.

Okay.

She had a bag of clothes.

It’s It’s more square in shape, it seems, rather than a round.

So, if she is in there, she’s going to be slumped down in the seat hopefully than we hope.

There’s I would say there’s pretty much zero chance of going in the vehicle to secure her if she is in there.

And so, it would be a We can get the vehicle out.

I can rig the vehicle.

We can get the vehicle out.

And our hope is is that she’s in the seatbelt and she’s not coming out.

Um so, that’s where we’re at now that we have identified it.

Now it does become a crime scene.

We don’t, you know, we don’t just start doing things on our own at this point.

We’re here to assist if they would like our help.

Can I get to it? 100%.

I’ve been down there.

I’ve been back.

I didn’t have to take that all the way with me.

So, you guys Yeah.

you know, saw that.

So, we know that we have have ability to do what needs to be done to rig this to pull it out.

Okay.

Um the best way to to do it I would go with the Sheriff No, I’m just saying Yeah, yeah, no, you definitely want to go up that side cuz that’s also the direction that’s facing.

Yeah.

Um and then just have spotters down here because at this point, you know, if she’s in there, she should be buoyant if she’s going to come out.

Yeah.

And that’s been 50 days.

And so we just want to make sure that we have people staged along the way in that scenario.

Yeah.

Um yeah, or in in that event that she does come out.

But other than that we got to get the Sheriff down here and let him make the call as to what needs to be done.

We do need a rotator in order to make this happen, but give me a rotator and between the two of us we’ll have the vehicle out.

What do you think? Do you think she’s in there? It’s a tough call.

I I don’t know if she is or not.

There’s a lot of force coming through there.

Yeah.

Yeah, front end is blown out, rear is blown out.

All the windows are blown out.

Were you holding on for dear life a lot? No, no, I’m in the eddy.

Okay.

Once you get in the eddies Yeah.

So that’s why I was able to go down and I went all the way to the end of that rock Yeah.

and then that brought me to the front of the vehicle Yeah.

and I was able to go in and underneath the vehicle up into the eddy of the back of the vehicle.

So what happened when you tried coming up the side? You just Way too much force.

Way too much.

There’s no way you can go up the side of the vehicle.

Hi, I’m Jared.

I’m Carolyn.

Carolyn? I was one of Christine’s best friends.

Yeah.

Such a sweet girl.

Such a sweet girl.

Yeah, sometimes this is what it takes is you just, you know, somebody else coming in to get the ball moving again for Oh, yeah.

you know, the family and the community and So we’ve got the ball in motion again you.

Hopefully it’ll stay in motion.

Yeah, that’s their biggest thing is it’s so too deep for them to get in and too fast This is but you’re a diver and not them, so it shouldn’t matter.

I got in and out without the rope.

I mean, I was able to swim over to it and back.

But that’s been the biggest concern and complaint.

It’s too deep, too deep, and if the current is too Well, you know, and this is where And I get it.

Is it’s not too deep.

I mean, as a diver nothing is too deep.

Yeah.

You know, and actually the deeper the better.

Because then it would be down in you know, a hole where there’s no current that the current’s going over the top of it.

Yeah.

Um so, we’re definitely not in a hole of any sort.

We are in heavier current because those two rocks come together and force it and then the current vehicle also is creating blockade, so water is limited in that area now going around.

Yeah.

So, it does create a lot more, but I was able to swim out to the very end of this rock in the eddy underneath of it.

Mhm.

And then I can see her vehicle at that point, so then I can swim over to it and go down the edge of it and stay in her eddy.

Yeah.

And then I’m able to come back across it.

And at the end of the day you stay low like a turtle.

I mean, you’re going to have pushing and pulling motion on your on your body here.

And so, by holding onto the rocks here and keeping your head down, not up, you’ll increase that downward force.

Mhm.

And then you’re creating your own eddy right here as well.

Yeah.

And so, that’s why you’re able to move across the bottom of the river.

Now, if you wanted me to go from the top down, that’s where now it’s going to be you know, a struggle to get down.

Yeah.

A lot of upper upper current.

searching a lot top down.

They were, you know, they they they did put some effort in in the beginning, but then it just Yeah.

Yeah.

And that’s you know, and a lot of times that’s what you have with the a lot of search and rescue organizations, they’re ground searches.

It’s very rare that it comes down to we’re specialized in what we do.

Yeah.

Do they have proper divers on the team? Are they swift water divers? Have they been in the currents before? Yeah.

Um just over Over years you put yourself in these situations to where you understand how this river is going to work and before you got here we were talking about we’re not going to go in above the rock here because that’s where all the force is at.

Yeah.

We’re going to drop into this eddy right here and stay low and make the way over there.

Yeah.

And this is why we document things as well so that way other divers and other people can learn from it as well.

But more so also is to put these stories out there so that way the next family can find us and know that these resources are available out there across the entire world.

Yeah, cuz I’ve never even heard of you.

And you know, we’ve been dealing with just beyond this egos and we’re in a small town.

And that’s the truth.

And this is a person of our community.

This person has grown up here, has served this community and it’s a it’s just disheartening.

It absolutely is that we’re standing here.

She has been a nurse for 20 years.

She she’s been a nurse, she put herself through school, like she raised a family, you know, a lot of pushback unfortunately.

So we’re just we’re grateful for you guys.

Thank you so much.

We’ll we’ll continue to offer up our services as much as they’ll take them.

You know, and if they have their own dive team that will now come in and say, “Okay, now that you found it, what’s the game plan?” You know, we’ll assist them in any way that we can.

And a lot of times it does become a “Oh, well, you’re not covered under our insurance.

We need to take control of it at this point.

” And we don’t we don’t have a problem with it, you know, the ball is in motion now.

It’s Yeah, for sure.

Well, now that you’ve just simply showed that it can be done.

That’s what I mean, that’s all that matters.

That was that’s big, yeah.

The biggest portion of it is a man did it.

Yeah.

With another man holding the rope unsure.

He made me a little nervous for you.

I wouldn’t really call him a man.

He eats chocolate chip pancakes and chocolate milk for breakfast.

That’s you know, that’s a well-rounded man.

Chocolate chip pancakes.

Say again? Uh dispatch called me back.

They just wanted to confirm a few things.

Okay.

And she said that she will call her sergeant back right away.

Okay.

All right, it’ll probably like I said I was telling the gals it’s probably going to be about 2 hours before they do anything anything and whether they give us the green light to go back in and tow truck is here and we have a plan.

Um you know I could go in right now and have everything rigged and be like hey you have to pull it out cuz the rigging is here but it does become a crime scene at this moment in time and we need to do things you know kind of by the book even though I don’t adhere to red tape all the time.

Hey sir.

Sir? I’m Jared.

I’m Senior Deputy Dobbs, Sheriff’s Office, sir.

Pleasure to meet you.

What’s what’s going on? So uh we were able to uh locate uh Christina’s vehicle.

Okay.

Uh not uh we don’t have any visual as to whether she’s in the front seat or not.

Okay.

Uh she’s definitely not in the rear of the vehicle and does not look like she’s in the middle of uh middle seat of the vehicle.

Um it’s something that you know at this point I’m here to just identify that we can get to it and we can help you out if you want our help or if you want us to step back at this point and just instruct and give some advice we’re How did you guys Did you guys dive it or did you pull cameras? So I dove it.

So I dove it.

I went to the vehicle and back uh with no assistance stayed in the eddies.

Um I have all the rigging gear.

This is what we do you know we do.

I’m familiar with your stuff.

Okay.

You guys post your stuff on Tik Tok? Yeah yeah Tik Tok and yeah.

I’ve seen it.

YouTube whatever so.

So I have all the rigging gear I’m able to rig the vehicle Okay.

but I am not able to secure Christina if she is inside.

Right.

So at at this point I can definitely help you get the vehicle out.

We would definitely need a rotator not just a heavy wrecker but let’s make sure that we have a rotator.

I’ll have everything rigged for you and we can pull this out if you have somebody else that wants to do it I can assist them when they give them instruct them and every jurisdiction is different so.

Right.

Um awesome okay well it’s I I know that it’s slowed down I know it was running about 2,000 cubes.

I think it’s down to about a grand today.

Yep.

Um I’m in contact with my search and rescue sergeant and he’s the one that’s ultimately going to make that decision.

Perfect.

So I came down here to to find out exactly what you guys had.

Yep.

If you we didn’t know if you guys pole cammed it or if you drove it or what exactly and or or how.

Perfect.

So what I’m going to do is I’m going to step away.

I’m going to give him a call right now and then we can kind of go from there.

That’s right.

Um rotator to here is is probably going to be at least 2 hours.

Oh yeah.

I just I mean I mean I’m sure you I’ve already Yeah, I’ve already let them right now.

kind of land no resources up here so it does take some time to get something that heavy duty headed this way.

But let me make a couple of phone calls and see what I can do for you guys and I’ll let you know what’s Perfect.

That’s great that you know who we are and so you know what we’re capable of and so if if we If we can help you out we’ll we’re do everything we can for you.

Awesome.

Perfect.

Thanks so much.

Nice meeting you.

Nice to meet you too, sir.

Let me let me make some calls.

All right.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

So I’ve got I’ve got um my my search and rescue sergeant is waiting on a diver.

Perfect.

And so as soon as they get to the office in Bakersfield they’ll be here.

So that’s 50 minutes call it an hour.

Awesome.

Um I’m getting ready to call Caltrans.

I’m going to block off this portion of the freeway and I’m going to start a rotator.

Okay.

I’m doing all of those things before my diver even gets here because I know how long those things are going to take to get to get put into.

Perfect.

Um what I’m going to ask from from you guys is um if you could just brief this is this is one of my search and rescue guys.

I’m Jared.

Captain Brian.

Pleasure meeting you.

And uh so so if you could just kind of he you guys may speak a little bit more of the same language when it comes to diving in river stuff.

Yep.

Um and then what I’m going to ask from you guys is just to kind of let us take it from here.

Perfect.

And um and hopefully we can we know with the information that you’ve gathered and the information that my divers can come in and hopefully we can come in and get this thing taken care of today.

Perfect.

Sounds good.

And then we’ve got some additional rigging to help you guys out whatever whatever you need or if you got everything you need but I think we should have everything that we need.

My to I mean to be perfectly honest with you my my my concern is that is from a liability standpoint.

100%.

And and I mean and I know you know Wait, which we we touched on right off the bat, so not a problem at all.

I know I’m not telling you anything that you probably haven’t heard already.

Um but I just I just can’t I can’t have you getting hurt in my river.

100% Yeah, I understand.

So the Yeah, the only thing I ask from you at this point is, you know, I mean you understand how we fund this and what we do.

So if you can keep us involved as much as you can in this in the scene so we can finish our documentation.

Yeah, I’ll I’ll I will do as much as I possibly can for Awesome, really appreciate it.

So Sure, absolutely.

All right, sounds good.

I just have a couple of simple questions.

Yeah.

Uh how far down do you think it is from the surface? From the surface? I mean, the top of the vehicle is 2 3 ft at this point.

ft? Um it’s also up on rocks, so even though the the depth of it might be 10 ft here, the vehicle itself is up off the bottom 2 to 3 ft because the way that sitting.

It is facing upstream at this moment.

The nice thing is if you want to walk over there, I can show you what we’re up against, but it’s really nice because you have an eddy to drop into.

You stay in that eddy right out to it.

At that point, you can actually see the vehicle and then again just work your way right to the vehicle and let yourself drift into the back of the vehicle into that eddy.

The rear bumper is completely missing.

You have access to go right around the frame, whether you’re going to go with the whether you use straps or your nice to twist lock shackles or or whatever you want to go around the rear frame.

That’s the way that I would rig it.

And then I would come up on the bank over here with the rotator and pull it up backwards.

Downside is is we cannot make verification whether Christine is inside or not.

I can see in the backseat.

I can see the middle seat.

Uh but by time you get the light and everything to the front, it’s just really blurry and murky a little bit as you know that how the river can be here.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

Uh all the windows are blown out.

So a lot of force coming through the vehicle itself.

And so you guys you guys went just how you described it in from the side and you weren’t tethered or anything.

You were able to just free swim.

Yep.

Yeah, not tethered at all.

But you definitely definitely stay low and I wasn’t even over weighted.

I mean, I just was with my regular dive set up.

If you want to go an extra 10 15 lbs, you know, do so.

It’ll help you out for sure.

Okay.

Uh make sure you’re wearing a full face.

Make sure you’re not wearing a regular mask, otherwise that mask will rip right off.

So your your guy that’s coming up is a swift water diver? Yeah.

Oh, perfect.

Yeah, this will be a walk in the park for him.

She’s kind of dead center there.

You can kind of see a little shadow, which is the back of the vehicle.

I came down and I actually came up into this eddy.

You have a little uh under cave right here, which creates a great eddy, which will bring you up high right here and then you can swim right over to the side of the vehicle and right down the side.

By the time you get mid center is where you have the rocks that it’s sitting up on.

It’s not going to move.

It’s not going to come down on you.

Uh both of the wheels are up on that rock and then you come back into the eddy right here and hook up onto the rear frame.

The downside, like I said, you don’t know if she’s in her seat belt.

Uh I told the girls and you know, your team, you know, probably stage people along the river to make sure at this point she’s 50 days in, so she’s going to be buoyant and if she comes out she should float and we should we everybody should see her.

I’ll leave this here for now, so that way you guys don’t have to haul additional rope down for Okay.

a guideline to help him into the water here.

And then, like I said, I’ve I’ve got every piece of different type of rigging equipment if you need it.

If not, Okay.

Cool.

All right, and we’ll just reconvene again and yeah, probably do this briefing when the diver gets here just so you guys are each talked.

Sounds good.

And then they’re not making the call to pull it out.

Hey, how are you? How’s it going? Good.

You the uh diver? No, I’m not the diver.

Okay.

I’m a coordinator.

Um so, do you guys have video of when you guys dove down there? Yep.

Can we see that? Yeah, you want to walk back in the RV? Yeah, let’s I walked all the way up here for you.

Just wanted to go back down.

What was your name again? Joe.

Joe? Yeah.

Pleasure to meet you.

I’m Jared.

Yeah, well let’s go sit down there.

So I’m putting in just below these rocks in the eddy here.

And then you’ll see as we head down, there’s a kind of like an underwater cave with some debris here.

So nice eddy that brings you up higher above the vehicle.

And then I’m thinking I still need to go up higher and then I look up to the right and then I see the vehicle right here.

And so there’s a second door, second row.

And then the back wheels are on this rock here, the axle.

So the vehicle’s facing just a little bit upstream sideways so there’s more pressure on this side, a little less on this side.

I was able to move up some but by the time I made it to the door then the pressure just became too much so I couldn’t pull myself up on the side.

So came back to the eddy.

So you’ve got something floating in here.

It’s not a body or anything, something more square.

Trying to and you’ll see me I’m hanging out in here for a while trying to see if I can see her in the front seat slumped down or anything and I can’t tell if she’s up front or not.

Then looking for hook points.

You got a good hook point around the the frame right there.

Nice and solid.

The only thing is if you threw a J-hook around in there, but it’d be I’d feel more comfortable putting a chain around the frame right here.

I wouldn’t go to the chain hooks.

Those will just end up ripping off for what we need to do with it.

And then I just stay low, make my way back across and come right back up where I put in that.

Yeah, for swift water and rigging and you couldn’t ask for a better scenario for what we got to deal with there.

Downside is we don’t know if she’s in there and we don’t know we don’t have any way to secure if she is.

Right.

When our team comes here, Yeah.

are you guys able to take that up there? Do you guys want to get back down here? Yeah, no, we can come back up there, so.

Yeah, just holler and we’ll head up there that time.

Got it.

Cool.

Sounds good.

I’ll let them know.

Okay.

Awesome.

Yep, you’re welcome, Joe.

Did your diver make it? Sorry? Did your diver make it down? Is he in town? He’s on his way.

Okay.

Cool.

Yeah.

We are It takes It takes quite a while for us to get anything Yeah.

to come this way.

Yeah, well, we’ll still be here, so.

We need us.

Yep.

I have never seen this before in my entire life.

They’ve been here for 4 hours and then tow trucks disappear.

Every single cop disappears, your road department disappears, all cones have been picked up.

I We’re We’re left speechless.

We’ve never We’ve never seen this in a million years.

And I’m never one I’m the last one to ever throw law enforcement under the bus.

Same here, yeah.

But nobody came down, nobody said anything.

Nobody’s communicated with us.

We’re waiting on the divers.

That was last we heard, waiting on the divers.

We’ve been waiting on the divers since 10:00 or 10:30 11:00 this morning.

They said he’ll be here in an hour, he’s just down in Bakersville.

Then I spoke with the search and rescue coordinator.

They said we have a great dive team, they’re on they’re on their way.

I specifically asked, are they swift water rescue divers? Are they capable of capable of this? 100% He said, yes, they are.

And then we had the coordinator come down, took a look at the footage.

He’s the only one that’s taken a look at the underwater footage.

And nobody else has communicated anything further.

It took me how many minutes to get in the water, swim over to it, view it, come back and give a full assessment.

It’s going to take us 8 minutes to rig the entire thing.

Yeah, I We’ve We’ve taken vehicles out of water that has moved swifter than this.

And I’ve been in water that’s swifter than this.

And What in your opinion would get them back here? Would it be you going back in? Could you visualize her if maybe um a different approach into the water? I mean, what would you think would get them back here? A 911 call, I mean, I mean, I can pre-rig it.

Like, here’s the effing line.

the thing, if you did that, what are they They can’t say no.

Holy no, that’s cuz nobody’s here.

They Nobody can say no cuz they’re not here.

Well, you call 911 or whatever and it’s like I mean, I mean, at the end of the day, this is now a crime scene.

And it’s like, we’re all in health care.

We also respect the police.

Like, we we’re on their side all of the time.

We have their back all the time.

And this is one of theirs.

We are we are first responders.

This is a nurse in there.

Like an RN that has served this community and helped to them numerous times.

Where are they when she needs them? Right.

And a mother of a sheriff’s a mother or yeah.

Whether he likes me or whether he got along with her, whatever differences he has, whatever, it’s the mother of his children.

It’s called be respectful now.

Yeah.

They tried to remove us the second day because so many people showed up here.

They started going on the loudspeaker.

Everyone leave told us that we needed to get off of the highway.

Everyone leave now.

Which I understand.

This is a busy highway.

I get it.

I mean, would it be smarter for us to like pre-rig it and call them or you don’t want to pre-rig it if they’re not going to show up.

They’re not.

I mean, they’re they’re not making the call to pull it out.

But I I mean, from what I feel like what they’re saying is their diver doesn’t feel safe going in the water.

Their diver didn’t even show up that I know of.

Exactly.

At the end of the day, they their call was to make it lower at 500 and that’s what they’re going to wait.

I feel like that’s Maybe somebody of higher authority started barking and said, “Get out of there.

” and told them all, “Forget it.

” You know.

Whatever reason.

But it But at the end of the day, you would have come down here and said, “Here’s what we’re doing.

I would have Here’s the game plan.

Yeah.

Everybody can go home.

We’re coming back on the 15th or whatever.

” would say let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.

Let’s call dispatch.

Let’s Let’s put this on speaker and just find out where Why did everybody leave and nobody’s communicated anything Yeah.

with everybody down here.

And my senior deputy, so I I guess he briefed me on a little bit.

We had a crazy thing happen up in Walford.

I guess uh our dive team on what they have to do in order to recover the vehicle, they said the conditions were still too unsafe, but but they they might have to like break the windows or do all kind of run a bunch of lines down there.

And they’re saying it’s still too swift and dangerous to go down there.

To do all of that.

Even knowing that we’d already had the diver in the water? Yeah, I they’re saying it’s they he told me it’s different to dive down and just look at the car.

They said they could do that, but when it comes to like what they have to do to actually hook up to the car and run a bunch of lines in, they say it’s too dangerous for the diver.

Okay, he’s offering to do it.

Yeah, nobody like I said came down and my husband just happened to drive by and said, “Oh, everybody’s gone.

” I was like, “What?” Yeah, I’m sorry about that.

I’m sure you guys know we arrested that guy, right? No.

The way from you guys.

Oh, that guy.

Yeah, we dealt with that cuz he had a bunch of warrants.

Um and then we had something heinous happen in Wofford, so I’ve been on that.

Okay.

And then I came back and saw my senior there and so what happened and that’s what he told me.

Okay, is that Dobbs? Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you, Officer Luttrell.

All righty.

Okay.

Have a good day.

You too.

The window’s already broken.

Yeah.

No no other diver came and spoke with me to figure out if he could.

He didn’t look at the video that shows the frame is completely exposed and Joe had all that information, too.

So, if the dive team really did show up, they had all the information.

Right.

That’s their time to figure it out.

When the water basically is exposing the entire vehicle before they will go in.

It’s already on the news.

Should I move back up here? What’s that little animal there? A squirrel? Say, this is Chris.

Hi, Mr.

Clark.

I don’t want to say we’re stuck, but I think we’re just stuck.

It’s not okay.

We’ve been stuck for 50 days.

That’s what we need.

We need We thought this was our answer.

We thought did most of our work for them.

They’re going live at 4:30.

They They’re not confident that they can get the vehicle out.

And if they try and fail, it’s going to look bad.

So, they’re better off not trying than making themselves look bad.

Well, it’s like Saturday, there was a car 50 ft down the hill in the canyon, and they got it out.

They waited till sunlight.

They hooked up to it, and they got it out.

They shut down the whole road in the process for the entire day.

It’s like when they care, they do it.

Don’t even take the courtesy to say, “We’re wrapping it up for today.

Diver said it’s unsafe.

” Period.

Well, and the thing, the senior deputy knows us all from the hospital.

Right.

The one of the head search and rescue guys also knows us personally from the hospital.

Right.

Like, it’s not like it’s not that it matters, anyone’s important, but like we’re all pillars of the community.

Yeah.

Yeah, small community.

Yeah, I mean, two things.

I don’t want to get arrested, and two, I don’t want you guys to be, you know, that this is your community.

When I leave, it’s still your community.

Don’t worry.

See, or The cops were here for 4 hours today.

Their divers, I don’t even know if they really showed up or not, but I dove on the vehicle.

It took me a whole 8 minutes to go down to the vehicle.

So, our frustration now is saying that, you know, a amazing officer that came down.

I’m going to start with that.

That the first amazing the the first officer that came down, amazing uh guy to work with, and he’s also seen all of our, you know, a lot of our videos before, so he knew he knows who we are, and he’s like, “I appreciate everything that you guys are doing.

” So, like I said, great officer to work with.

Up here on the road ends up with what, a good 20-plus people? How many officers? 15? A dozen? At least a dozen-plus city city county workers that block off the road.

The tow truck shows up, and then 2 hours later, we go out and look up, and the cones are gone.

Every law enforcement officer gone.

The tow truck is gone.

I already said that.

There’s nobody up there.

It’s dead.

Okay? The vehicle is still right there.

If it’s my daughter, my wife, Mike’s freaking livid.

The the friends and everybody’s freaking livid.

And if they see the vehicle, Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

I mean, it’s right there.

Yeah.

I’ve been on it.

It took me 8 minutes to go down, take my time to assess the situation, and if the rumor that we’re getting is that the dive team has claimed Now, I’m again, I’m not here to throw I don’t Okay.

I normally don’t throw people under the bus, but right this second, I’m so pissed off, I’m throwing people under the bus.

You didn’t even come talk to me and say, “Hey, let me take a look at that footage.

What would you do? Do you have any equipment? I can’t do it, so would you go back and do it because we need to get that vehicle out because she’s been in the water for 50 days now, okay?” So again, if you’re watching me and you were the diver that made the call on that, quit right now.

Cuz you’re a shame.

Shameful that you would be a rescue diver.

Swiftwater, that’s not even swiftwater.

You know, we are all frustrated.

We’ve been out here off and on for 50 days, and like we know that everyone’s doing as much as they can.

We know there’s policies.

We know there’s procedures, but we Something needs to be done.

I can see her car right there.

Like, how They said they said we not get it? it was too dangerous.

They said it was too deep, and I can see it.

It’s just so upsetting.

It’s disheartening, for sure.

We just We want to know what we can do.

How do we get our friend out? Justice for all mankind.

Crews have recovered the submerged SUV belonging to a missing local nurse from the Kern River.

But deputies confirm no one was found inside that vehicle.

The wreckage of the Toyota 4Runner belonging to Christina Murphy emerged from the river off westbound Highway 178 in Lake Isabella Saturday.

She had been reported missing back on July 22nd.

But if I ruled the world I’d sail the seas looking for someone to tell me what it means to love without taking all we gently seize.

Stay where you can’t see what’s really beneath.

If I ruled the world If I ruled the world Oh, find me on the other side.

I’ll be trying to lose my mind.

There’s no shattered pride when you realize you’re just tossing in the tide.

But if I ruled the world I’d sail the seas looking for someone to tell me what it means to love without taking all we gently seize.

Stay where you can’t see what’s really beneath.

If I ruled the world