Body found in car pulled from New Jersey river likely mom who vanished 14 years ago: family
A body found inside a mud-covered car yanked from New Jersey’s Cooper River last week is likely that of a mother who vanished from the area 14 years ago, her family say.
Bernadine Waters Gunner was last seen alive by relatives in Camden, NJ, back in July 2010 after she told them she was going to kill herself because she couldn’t find a job, according to her missing person’s report.
Gunner was 52 at the time.
The search for the missing mom went cold for more than a decade until the nonprofit search organization, United Search Corps, pulled multiple vehicles from the river last Thursday — including Gunner’s 2006 Hyundai Elantra, the family said.
“Thanks to Doug (United Search Corps) we have closure our family can now give my mom a proper burial,” Gunner’s daughter, Julia Young, said in Facebook post as she ripped local cops’ handling of the case.
“As you already know Camden County Police didn’t do a great job with my mothers case it took for a one band man to come here and dive into that water and discover my mom. We can’t thank him enough for what he has done. Almost 14 years with no answers and now we have them.”
Authorities haven’t yet confirmed if the human remains found belong to the missing mom.
“We’re confident that it’s her. Definitely,” Doug Bishop, from the search group, told NJ Advance Media.
He added that the vehicle registration matched Gunner’s Hyundai and that some of the woman’s belongings were still inside the car.
The search used sonar equipment to scan the Cooper River in search of the car, Bishop said.
Meanwhile, Bishop said the family reacted with “grief and relief” when he informed them of the discovery.
“They were humble and grateful, real salt of the earth people,” he said. “You could see in their eyes that what they had been carrying for 14 years they were no longer carrying.”
The Camden County Prosecutor’s Office and Pennsauken Police Department said they had launched an investigation after three vehicles were pulled from the river last week.
The remains, which authorities said still needed to undergo DNA testing, were found in the driver’s side area of one of the cars.
It wasn’t immediately clear how long the vehicles had been submerged in the river for.
