The site where Erin Foster and Jeremy Bechtel crashed

This is the location where Erin Foster (18) and Jeremy Bechtel (17) crashed.

It is situated close to Highway 84 on the northern outskirts of Sparta, Tennessee.

The two teenagers mysteriously disappeared on the night of April 3rd, 2000.

That evening, they attended a house party. However, they left relatively early to pick up Foster's younger brother, Will, from an arcade.

After dropping Will home, the pair left to drive back to the party.

When Foster didn't show up the next day, her family tried not to panic, as the 18-year-old had been talking about getting a place of her own.

However, as the days passed by, anxiety began to creep in. Consequently, they decided to file a missing person report.

During the investigation, the authorities seemed to believe that Foster and Bechtel had disappeared after leaving the party. This was despite the fact that the last known sighting of the teenagers was actually at Foster's house.

Unfortunately, this led to a situation where the police concentrated most of their search efforts in the wrong area.

For more than two decades, Foster and Bechtel remained missing. During that period, there were rumors that the pair had been murdered or that they had moved to Florida and started a new life together.

Years later, while White County Sheriff Steve Page was reviewing the case, he decided that it was time to wipe the slate clean and start over.

As he was looking through old documents, he came across a statement from Foster's family, in which they said that the teenagers had brought Will home and were planning on returning to the party.

This previously overlooked tip was crucial, as it suggested that something may have happened to them shortly after they left Foster's home.

In 2021, a scuba diver named Jeremy Sides started looking into the couple's disappearance.

Sides, who owns a YouTube channel dedicated to cold cases, started combing lakes in the area.

After being told about the overlooked tip by Sheriff Page, he began using a sonar system to scan the Calfkiller River beside Highway 84.

In late November, his system picked up a vehicle at this section of the river. After diving 13 feet into the water, he could see that it was a black 1988 Pontiac Grand Am—the same car model that the teenagers had been driving on the night of their disappearance.

When he wiped the algae off the license plate, he saw that it read 473 EJR.

Shortly afterwards, Sheriff Page arrived at the crash site, ran the tag, and confirmed that the car was registered to Foster:

"I need you to run a tag for me. And this is—this is big. When you're ready. 473. Echo. John. Robert. Is that the Fosters'? Okay, we found the car."

When the authorities recovered the vehicle, the teenagers' remains were still inside.

It is believed that the pair were driving along Highway 84 when Foster lost control of the vehicle.

Back in 2000, there would have been no visible signs that a car had crashed into the river, as there were no guardrails at the side of the road.

This means that Erin Foster and Jeremy Bechtel lay in this exact spot for more than 20 years while the world continued to pass them by.

Photos

Photos of the site and other related images.

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