Has Kiely Rodni been found? Is she dead? Police are yet to confirm if the dive team that fished out a body along with a car from Prosser Creek Reservoir on Sunday is that of Rodni, the 16-year-old California girl who went missing but Adventures With Purpose. However, the search team behind the grim discovery claims that the body of Rodni and she is dead.
While many still have doubts about the identity of the body, there are several who are giving credit to Adventures With Purpose for their discovery, which law enforcement officials failed to do in weeks. But what is Adventures With Purpose? What do they do and how do they work?
Amateur Sleuths
Six divers from Adventures With Purpose's search team started their search for Rodni on Saturday. Divers searched various bodies of water with sonar, including Donner Lake and Boca Reservoir, before claiming to have found the body in Prosser Creek Reservoir, just a few hundred yards from the location where Rodni was last seen on August 6.
A few hours later they found what they think to be the 2013 Honda CRV that Rodni had driven to a graduation celebration close to the lake out of Prosser Creek Reservoir. They also found a body alongside the vehicle.
The New York Post reported that the diver who discovered the car said that its license plate matches that of the Honda Rodni was driving when she vanished.
Police were unable to immediately identify the body, though. A representative for Rodni's family stated that they had not verified the identity of the body. However, Adventures With Purpose believes that the body is that of Rodni.
The group said Kiely's car was found "upside down in only 14 (feet) of water" at Prosser Creek Reservoir in a Facebook post just after 2:30 p.m. "We have CONFIRMED Kiely is inside."
Adventures With Purpose is an Oregon-based search-and-recovery group known for solving roughly two dozen cold cases. The volunteer group is an "underwater sonar search and recovery dive team helping families locate missing loved ones underwater."
How Do They Work
Adventures With Purpose was founded a few years back and since has a YouTube channel where they post their videos. They have millions of subscribers and are also a hot favorite of many law enforcement agencies.
The group started producing YouTube videos in 2018 and has 2.42 million subscribers. Besides, 1.4 million people follow Adventures with Purpose on Facebook, and 126,000 people follow them on Instagram.
The YouTube playlists for the group feature a variety of videos on topics like underwater treasure seeking, missing boat searches, recovering stolen vehicles, and discovering stolen weapons. These videos range from a few minutes to over an hour.
Videos feature interviews with law enforcement to ensure that the group has factual information. The police departments occasionally receive fresh information that AWP divers have discovered while searching.
A typical film includes an explanation of the case by a team of divers, images of the missing person, and context-rich news footage. Before going to the location they intend to search, the divers will describe the study they have done.
In a video posted on Aug. 16, host Doug Bishop announced that they would depart from their headquarters in Oregon for California to join the search. It happened on the same day that law enforcement officials made a statement about reducing their search resources.
On August 19, it was revealed via an Instagram post that Adventures with Purpose had arrived in Truckee and would soon begin searching for Rodni. According to Fox 40, the volunteer divers and their specialized gear arrived and started scouring the Prosser Creek Reservoir's waters on Saturday.
"Police told us they did a rigorous search of this body of water," diver Josh Cantu, 31, said. "They gave us a grid map and made us confident we didn't need to search here." Following the dive, one of the crew members, Nick Rinn, 48, discovered a body in a car not far from the shore.
