Police officers testing new equipment found more than they anticipated at one Utah reservoir this week.
Divers pulled four vehicles out of Pineview Reservoir Saturday after they were serendipitously found by sonar equipment.
“Our search and rescue team got some new sonar equipment, and so they went up to Pineview a couple of weeks ago to start testing this out and doing a little bit of training on it,” said Lieutenant Lane Findlay with the Weber County Sheriff’s Office. “During the course of that training, they came across these vehicles that had been dumped in the reservoir, down by the dam.”
Findlay said it appears as though the vehicles had been purposefully discarded.
As investigators examined the area further, they came to find a total of five vehicles submerged in the water.
One of the cars, a Toyota 4Runner, had been stolen Aug. 30 from Ogden. Three other vehicles were found in close proximity to each other, east of the most recent dumping site; they had license plates which expired in the late 1990s.
Findlay said discarding vehicles in large bodies of water is not necessarily common, but it does happen.
“If they’re successful in getting it out into the water, it sinks and then years go by before it’s ever discovered,” Findlay said.
An additional vehicle was found partially submerged in the reservoir earlier this year.
At least three of the vehicles discovered this week had been reported stolen.
Investigators are working to find if there is a connection between the cases; however, Findlay said time and water damage obscure evidence, which will make it difficult to find answers.
Findlay said divers will return to Pineview Reservoir over the weekend to recover the fifth vehicle.