Oklahoma police stumble across six bodies in a lake

The two vehicles were discovered by chance as Oklahoma highway patrol officers carried out a training session with a new sonar device. Trooper George Hoyle told the Elk City Daily News that the cars were side-by-side in about 12 feet of water.

Pulled from the mud at the bottom of Foss Lake, the first vehicle, a Chevrolet dating from the 1950s, was believed to contain the remains of three people who disappeared in the early 1960s. No missing person records are kept from that era, but Custer County Sheriff Bruce Peoples told the Daily News that he recalled stories of a car containing two or three people that disappeared after being seen in Canute, some ten miles south of the lake.

It it was later suggested however, that the car could belong to Alvi Porter, who went missing 44 years ago when he was 69 years old, prompting questions as to the identities of the two other people.

The second vehicle, a blue 1969 Camaro is believed to be linked to the disappearence of three Sayre High School students: 16-year-old Jimmy Allen Williams, 18-year-old Thomas Michael Rios and 18-year-old Leah Gail Johnson. They were last seen on 20 November 1970 in a car of the same make which was never found at the time.

Speaking at the scene, sheriff Peoples told reporters “it’s gonna bring closure to the families when we can notify everyone who is involved in this.”