The recovery of remains discovered in a car pulled from the Cooper River on Thursday may have solved the disappearance of a Camden woman 14 years ago, according to her family and a nonprofit search organization that helped locate the vehicle.
Bernadine Waters Gunner was reported missing in July 2010, according to the Camden County Police Department’s missing persons page. She was 52 at the time.
“We’re confident that it’s her. Definitely,” Doug Bishop, a diver with United Search Corps, told NJ Advance Media on Saturday evening. The connection to the Gunner missing person case and United Search Corps investigation was first reported by NJPEN.com.
United Search Corps used sonar to scan a bend in the Cooper River in Pennsauken in search of her car.
Authorities pulled three vehicles from the river on Thursday and confirmed human remains had been recovered from the driver’s side of one of the cars. Camden County Prosecutor’s Office officials said DNA tests would be needed to identify the remains.
Bishop told NJ Advance Media the Vehicle Identification Number found on the submerged car was a match to Gunner’s 2006 Hyundai Elantra.
In addition, clothing and a dozen personal items that belonged to Gunner were still in the vehicle. Bishop said the skeletal remains also matched the description of the woman, who was 5 feet tall and thin.
Gunner’s daughter, Julia Young, expressed her gratitude in a Facebook post.
“Thanks to Doug (United Search Corps) we have closure,” she wrote. “Our family can now give my mom a proper burial. Almost 14 years with no answers and now we have them.”
Bishop said Camden County Prosecutor’s Office officials met with Gunner’s family. The prosecutor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday evening.
Bishop said the Gunner family reacted with “grief and relief” when he met with them.
“They were humble and grateful, real salt of the earth people,” Bishop said. “You could see in their eyes that what they had been carrying for 14 years they were no longer carrying.”
Bishop is the founder of United Search Corps, a nonprofit that works to solve missing persons cases by pulling submerged cars from rivers and lakes. The United Search Corps uses the sonar equipment to find the wrecks, and then Bishop dives into the water to investigate them.
Bishop said he started probing submerged wrecks in Oregon, where he worked for a towing company that specialized in underwater salvage. He started United Search Corps about 17 months ago. The organization operates on the theory that many people declared missing are actually victims of car wrecks that ended in rivers and lakes.
Bishop said he was in New Jersey working another cold case when one of his supporters told him about the Gunner disappearance. Gunner lived about a mile from the spot where her car went off the road and into the river, he said.
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.Richard Cowen may be reached at rcowen@njadvancemedia.com.
