Amateur Missouri investigators and YouTube creators are helping solve a decades-old missing person case

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A decades-old unsolved case involving a Marine veteran who disappeared without a trace in rural Missouri is back in action after an amateur detective and the help of a YouTube creator led police to unidentified human remains have led.

Donnie Erwin, a 59-year-old Camdenton resident, went missing on December 29, 2013, after he went out to smoke cigarettes and never returned. His disappearance piqued the interest of longtime true crime enthusiast and videographer James Hinkle last year, and the YouTuber spent a year tracking down generations of Erwin's relatives and spent his free time searching for him after work and documenting his efforts his channel. Eventually he discovered Erwin's car hidden in a small pond.

In December 2023, almost exactly a decade after his disappearance, emergency responders and firefighters retrieved Erwin's algae-encrusted Hyundai Elantra and a titanium hip piece from a roadside drainage pond less than 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) from his home.

“While a forensic pathologist must examine the remains to determine with certainty whether they are indeed Mr. Erwin's remains, investigators are confident that the hip and remains belong to him,” a statement from the Camden Sheriff's Office said County.

The case languished for years after Erwin's disappearance, frustrating investigators and his family. Yvonne Erwin-Bowen, Erwin's sister, said she felt emotions beyond pain, frustration, anger and sadness that she “can't even put into words.”

“This is one of those cases that keeps you on your toes,” sheriff's office spokesman Sgt. Scott Hines said. “Because the car just disappeared and there’s no sign of it anywhere.”

Hinkle had skills that qualified him for the search.

“I just decided I’m a scuba diver. I’m already a drone pilot,” Hinkle said. “I’m like, ‘What the fuck? I'll just check.'”

“Just Go Look” turned into a year of searching for Hinkle, and on his final hunt he visited every nearby pond, including waters that had already been searched, and searched again. Hinkle, along with another true crime junkie acting as his partner, planned to wait until winter, so that the algae covering the water would die off and nearby trees would lose their leaves.

Hinkle eventually had luck tracing possible routes from Erwin's house to the supermarket where he bought cigarettes, and then locating roadside cliffs steep enough to hide an overturned car from passing motorists.

From there, Hinkle flew his drone past a pond so small he had previously written it off, where he found a tire.

When he returned a few days later with a kayak equipped with sonar and his camera and found a large car in the middle of the pond's shallow water, he called the sheriff.

Hines said the discovery of the car was “the new beginning of the investigation.”

“Everything we've done in the last 10 years has basically gotten us nowhere,” Hines said. “And then suddenly here is this vehicle.”

Cadaver dogs brought by volunteers were later alerted to the smell of possible human remains in the pond, which will be drained for further evidence, Hines said.

Erwin-Bowen said the strangers who helped her search the area for years and the support she received from a Facebook page she dedicated to the search for her brother taught her “that there is still There is good in people.”

“Without the public, I don’t think we would be where we are today,” Erwin-Bowen said. “Because they kept his face alive.”

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Ahmed reported from Minneapolis and is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @TrishaAhmed15