Danger below: Divers detail perils of scouring Western Pa.'s rivers for remains

Darrick Gerano says scuba diving in the Allegheny River ranges from unpleasant to downright harrowing.

The water is cold and murky. Vision often is limited to just a few feet. Tree branches and junk dumped into the river pose a constant threat of entanglement.

And then there are the dead bodies.

“It’s not a fun job,” said Gerano, director of Murrysville Medic One. “It’s not like we’re going to the Caribbean and swimming with a bunch of beautiful fish.”

There’s no telling how many bodies are in Southwestern Pennsylvania’s rivers, but Gerano has stumbled across human remains eight times in the past five years. Just last month, his team was conducting a training dive in Springdale when they discovered the remains of Bunnie Lee trapped inside his Mazda.

The 78-year-old man from East Liberty, who is believed to have suffered from dementia, had been missing since 2013.

A few weeks later, the remains of Janet Walsh, 70, of Shaler were discovered in a submerged vehicle in Oakmont. She had been missing for nearly five years.

Both remains were found by coincidence.

Some online and social media commenters have suggested authorities should scan the region’s three rivers for remains in a single, coordinated effort to bring closure to as many families as possible.

But that would be nearly impossible, according to expert divers, sonar operators and cold case specialists.

Richard Linn, operations chief for Pittsburgh River Rescue, describes a recovery dive like “trying to search your backyard with only being able to see 2 feet in front of you. Just that small area of your yard would take a long, long time to search.”

As chief, he said it’s his responsibility to keep his divers safe, and a scattershot search probably wouldn’t be worth the risk.

“We want to help (the families) as much as we can, but it’s very difficult for me to put my divers in a very dangerous situation just for the possibility of locating a loved one,” Linn said.

Money and manpower

Diving remains almost as uncomfortable, dangerous and resource-intensive as ever, Gerano said.

Murrysville Medic One’s dive team travels with a trailer full of specialized gear, such as oxygen tanks, metal detectors, ice breakers and even body bags specifically designed to be used underwater.

The team also has inflatable bags that, when placed in precisely the right spots, can float a vehicle to the surface while controlling its orientation.

Outfitting a single diver costs at least $6,000, Gerano said, and that’s without factoring in training and the communications systems of the people monitoring them from the surface.

“We could all use more dollars,” Gerano said. “But where we benefit is a lot of us teams work very well together, like us and Greensburg. Usually when one goes out, the other one will go out with them.”

Related:

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• 50,000 pounds of car parts and 1 Beetle later, dredging improves Allegheny River
• Sunken cars common in the Allegheny River, authorities say after Springdale discovery

A lack of funding and interest has driven many agencies to disband their dive teams, further limiting the capacity for searches.

In Southwestern Pennsylvania, only Pittsburgh, Murrysville Medic One, Monroeville Volunteer Fire Company, Greensburg Volunteer Fire Department and Lower Kiski Ambulance Service handle water rescues and recoveries.

Monroeville’s dive team had dwindled to almost nothing in the early 2010s, according to Michael Kohlmann, chief of Monroeville Volunteer Fire Company No. 5. It has since rebounded.

“It is very dangerous what we do, but we’re here to serve the community,” Kohlmann said.

All the while, sonar technology has made significant leaps.

Objects that once turned up as blobs now can be distinguished as a car, tree or boat, according to Brett Kelly, a geographer for the Pittsburgh District of the Army Corps of Engineers.

He primarily works with multibeam sonar, allowing him to craft a 3D model of the riverbed. Side-scan sonar provides a real-time look underneath the water and is more commonly used by recreational boaters.

Even with a skilled eye, a full search of the rivers using sonar would be a major undertaking.

“It would take years,” Kelly said. “The equipment is super specialized. The people are super specialized.”

Outside help

Authorities aren’t alone in scouring and, in some cases, cleaning up the riverbed.

At least two amateur dive groups that film their cold case searches and post them to YouTube have visited Pittsburgh in recent years, racking up hundreds of thousands of views in the process.

In 2022, Oregon-based Adventures With Purpose was searching for Lee and Walsh near Acrisure Stadium when they found the remains of Todd DiMinno, a Harmony-area businessman who had been missing for more than a week.

Linn said he welcomes this type of help, provided authorities are notified ahead of time.

In just a few days, the group spotted more than 100 vehicles in the Allegheny River.

Some of those likely were among the wreckage scooped out of the region’s rivers last week by Living Lands & Waters, an Illinois-based nonprofit that has removed more than 13 million pounds of garbage from America’s waterways. Multiple other organizations, including Three Rivers Waterkeeper, assisted with the endeavor.

At one point, an excavator parked on a barge scooped 10 cars worth of junk from the Allegheny River in just 30 minutes near a spot Downtown that once was a parking lot. Crews believe flooding may have washed some cars out of the lot and into the river — though others may have been connected to crimes.

Theft and insurance fraud are common motives for plunging a vehicle into the river, according to divers. Guns, knives and drug paraphernalia also litter the riverbeds.

Callie Schaser, spokeswoman for Living Lands & Water, remembers when the nonprofit removed a car from the Ohio River near Kentucky with a brick still on the gas pedal.

In Schaser’s experience, places with industrial pasts like Pittsburgh seem to have more debris in their waterways.

“When it comes down to it, that’s the most that we’ve pulled in two and half days for sure in one area,” Schaser said.

Detective work

Pittsburgh River Rescue had dived multiple times on the areas dredged by Living Lands & Waters, but Linn said parts of the rivers remain a mystery.

“It isn’t like you can just go out the door and look and see,” Linn said. “Any missing person could be in the river. It’s just one of the places that, unfortunately, some people who are looking to commit suicide turn to, jumping from a bridge or driving their vehicles in the water.”

Without a blanket search, law enforcement is left to determine whether a missing person might be found in the river and, if so, where. It takes some guesswork.

In the hunt for Walsh, multiple dive teams had combed the Allegheny River between the Highland Park and 31st Street bridges. Her vehicle and remains ended up in Oakmont, about 5 miles upriver from the Highland Park Bridge.

Sometimes, agencies can’t give a missing person case enough attention to be able to make that guess.

Dana Boss, a crime analyst supervisor with the all-volunteer Cold Case Foundation, said detectives in jurisdictions of all sizes may struggle to keep up with their workload. As new cases come in, cold cases get put on the back burner.

“There’s a new burglary that came in. There’s a new sex crime that came in. Oh, there was a homicide last night,” Boss said. “That’s taking all of your resources on that one case because it’s brand-new and it’s fresh.”

In Gerano’s experience, astute anglers often make the best detectives, calling 911 after getting their lines caught on a car frame or spotting debris poking out of the water. That’s when the region’s dive teams spring into action.

“It’s a lot of money and hard work,” Gerano said. “Our reward is clearing a cold case 10, 15 years old.”