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YouTube divers found a body in a sunken car registered to a man who has been missing since 2003

Lindsay Dodgson   

YouTube divers found a body in a sunken car registered to a man who has been missing since 2003
International2 min read
  • The divers on the Adventures with Purpose YouTube channel may have found the body of a missing man.
  • They discovered the car of a man who went missing in 2003 in a lake in Ridley Township, Pennsylvania.

A team of YouTube divers from the group Adventures with Purpose may have helped police in Ridley Township, Pennsylvania get closer to solving a missing persons case from nearly two decades ago.

On March 20, the team posted a livestream on their channel saying they believed they had found the car belonging to James Amabile, who went missing in 2003, submerged 24 feet underwater in Darby Creek. They also found a body in the driver's seat.

"We are confident we have discovered not only Mr Amabile's vehicle, but his human remains as well," said Doug Bishop, one of the divers in the video.

The Adventures with Purpose 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 to targeting cold cases. The group has over two million subscribers on YouTube, and its amateur investigation videos have become widely viewed. In February, the team found a woman's car submerged in a Florida pond 10 months after she was reported missing, also with a body inside.

Police confirmed in a statement on Facebook that a man's body was found in the vehicle, and the license plate matched "a missing person entry from December of 2003." Authorities have not yet identified the person and the department did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

"The investigation is continuing," the police department stated in its March 20 Facebook post. "The Delaware County Medical Examiner's Office is examining the human remains for positive identification. At this time we will not be releasing the identity of the missing person. The family has been advised of Police findings. Due to the sensitive nature of this discovery, the missing person's family requests privacy while the investigation is ongoing."

Amabile disappeared in December 2003 after placing a call to the babysitter who was looking after his two daughters to say he was running late, according to CBS News.

"We believe and the family believes that we have definitely closed this case for them," Bishop continued in the video. "The medical examiner is going to have to do an exact identification before we can say for sure we have found Jimmy. He was known as Jimmy. His family is very extremely grateful."

Amabile's brother Stephen Amabile later told The Philadelphia Inquirer that he believed his brother, who was diabetic, may have driven into the lake after experiencing low blood sugar and making a wrong turn.

"It's my brother," he said of the findings. "They found him."

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