River search hasn't found car
Concrete block, not vehicle at site of first sonar readings
By BENJAMIN C. SHARP bensharp@journal-spectator.com

Law enforcement officials have planned out exactly how they will get a missing vehicle believed to be owned by Bobby Jones up from the bottom of the Colorado River - provided they can ever find it.

An exhaustive search of the river from upstream of Wharton all the way down to the low water dam in Bay City has failed to locate any vehicle, Sheriff Jess Howell said Tuesday.

Howell said a team from the Harris County Sheriff's Department mapped and videotaped beneath the entire river from bank to bank last week. They found nothing of consequence.

"This is the very first time they have looked for something and couldn't find it," Howell said. "They found nothing."

Plans now are to put boats in at Bay City later this week and come back up the river, doing "visual" checks from the surface. Howell said there's even some speculation the vehicle may have gotten over the dam when the river was at its highest level.

Tire tracks leading down to the water's edge were dis- covered near the Colorado River bridge back on June 23. Jones, a polka music performer and radio dee-jay, was reported missing that same weekend.

After finding the license plate from Jones' vehicle stuck in a sapling near the tracks, investigators began considering that his car was submerged nearby.

An initial probe of the area by boat appeared to confirm a vehicle was beneath the rainswollen and rapidly moving river. But that later turned out to be false hope.

"We thought we had it located and it was a concrete block," Howell said Tuesday.

His department has been criticized for not taking action sooner, he said, for not trying to get the car out before the river's flow apparently sent it downstream.

Doing that safely and effectively just wasn't possible, Howell said. The river's levels made it increasingly dangerous for divers to try and enter the water. Even if they could have done so, proper retrieval of the vehicle would have been impossible due to the flow.

Recovery of a submerged vehicle is a time-consuming and precise procedure, Howell said. The way it's done is by inflating flotation devices and attaching them to the vehicle in order to slowly bring it to the surface.

A dive team then "floats" the vehicle - guiding it through the water - to a pre-determined spot along the shore where it can be safely latched onto and brought ashore.

"It's not as easy as hooking to it and jerking it out of the water," Howell said.

"We don't want to tear it up. And if there's a body inside, we want it to stay in there."

Lower Colorado River Authority rangers will conduct the search from Bay City later this week. A lowered river level should aid in their efforts. The river posted a 12.02 level on Tuesday, and was projected to continue to fall, hitting 11 feet by this weekend.

Officials remain baffled by the car's apparent disappearance, but say they are committed to eventually finding some closure.

"We will continue to search until we've exhausted all means," Howell said.