MEAWW.COM / NEWS / HUMAN INTEREST

Diver who found Kiely Rodni's body suspects 'foul play' as teen was found in cargo hatch despite two windows being open

‘It reeks of foul play,’ Doug Bishop said, adding that it did not make any sense for the 16-year-old to crawl over the seats and into the hatch

TRUCKEE, CALIFORNIA: A diver who found the body of missing California teen Kiely Rodni in the back cargo hatch of her car submerged in a reservoir claimed that her death was suspicious and there was "foul play". Adventures With Purpose (AWP) diver Doug Bishop said that it was peculiar how Rodni's vehicle ended up where it did as she would have to make a sharp left turn onto a dirt path about a quarter mile from the main road.

Bishop also pointed out they found her remains in the cargo hatch of the vehicle even though the passenger side window was open and rear driver's side window was halfway down. "It doesn't add up," Bishop told Fox News Digital. "It reeks of foul play," Bishop said, adding that it did not make any sense for the 16-year-old to crawl over the seats and into the hatch as it would have sunk quickly once her vehicle entered the water and especially when two of the windows were open.

RELATED NEWS

Kiely Rodni: Amateur web sleuth claims dead teen’s laptop and belongings found in Prosser Creek Reservoir

Kiely Rodni: Police say autopsy results to take 'two months' as AWP dive team calls missing teen’s death 'suspicious'

"You're not going to crawl into the back and climb under a seat," he said. The local authorities searched for the missing teen for weeks, including at the reservoir where an Oregon-based civilian dive team located Rodni's body in August. The place is situated just a quarter mile from where she went missing from a party in the Tahoe National Forest campground. The Nevada Sheriff's Office had said that they would not provide any updates until November. Bishop told Fox News that he believed the delay supported his theory that Rodni's death was not an accident but foul play. 

"Ninety percent of vehicles found with people in it, they're normally found in the back," Tammy Watters of Sonar Search and Recovery said pushing back against Bishop's theory. "If it's an SUV, they're in the hatch." She explained that the engine was the heaviest part of the car, which would mean that the front end would nosedives first. "As the vehicle is sinking, they're climbing to the back to try to stay up out of the water. They're chasing the air," Watters said.

Recently, the divers released footage of their search for the teen who vanished from a graduation party on August 6. They showed on camera the moment they told her devastated father, David, they had found her body in the lake. He questioned how cops had failed to spot the huge car when they claimed they had already scoured the water closest to the party, exclaiming, "That's f***ing impossible."

The search for the teen took 19,000 search hours, involving police, the FBI and hundreds of volunteers. But it wasn't until Adventures With Purpose joined on August 21, that she was finally found. Bishop, who is a former tow truck driver and now a sonar expert, along with scuba instructor Nick Rinn, searched the Prosser Reservoir for just 35 minutes before they found Rodni's body. The SUV was found upside down in the water about 14ft down and 55ft from the shore. Her remains were found in the cargo hatch.