(woman crying) – It’s still not guaranteed at this point, okay? (soft music) We’re gonna call 9-1-1 right now, okay?
And we can call the detective and then we’re gonna come up with a game plan to get this out, okay? (soft music)
– [Man] You know what I mean? (soft music)
– [Reporter} A Waco woman disappears leaving her family with nothing but questions. (rapid music)
– She just took off and never came back. (rapid music)
– [Reporter] Today was the day Bianca Torres was supposed to celebrate her mother’s 43rd birthday.
It just feels weird without her. (rapid music)
But instead, the feeling of celebratory is replaced with fear as she desperately tries to find her mother, Stephanie Torres,
who went missing on December 21st. (rapid music) According to Waco police, Torres was last seen
in a blue-ish 2006 Kia. They are actively trying to find her and need the public’s help.
(rapid music)
– [Man] Need something? (soft music)
– Hi. – Hi. – Bianca? – Yes. – I’m Jared. – Nice to meet you. – Yes, thank you. – Sorry about all
the cameras. I really appreciate you working with us. And when I first come in I meet the family.
I say, “The cameras are here, we really appreciate you allowing us to film something that’s so, you know, close and intimate to your lives.”
But, if at any point you’re like, “Hey, Jared, we need to cut this off and we don’t want this on camera,” let us know.
Or anything like, “Hey, get the cameras out of here.” We are first and foremost here for your family. I’ll just go ahead, I wanna start with introductions
as to who we are. I’m Jared and this is Doug. – I’m Doug. – My lead diver. – Nice to meet you.
– And, what’s your name? – Jonathan. – Jonathan? – Yes, sir. – Pleasure to meet you. – Avana. – Alana? – Avana.
– Avana. And are both of you siblings? – Yes. – Okay, when we start this what we would like to do
is come into this as, you know, give us the story of your mom. We know that it was December 21, 2017,
driving a 2006 Kia. And in our conversation that we had on the phone
sounded like she was intoxicated that evening and you had mentioned that she had attempted to jump off of a bridge earlier that evening as well
or a day before or what’s the story? – She actually went to a bridge.
I’m not sure if she tried to jump or anything. – She did. – But I just remember seeing her at the bridge
and I caught her and I just told her just to come back home before she even tried doing anything.
She eventually did go back home that night. Then, she tried again to leave and so we had
to block her car in the driveway. – And all this is the same night? – The same night. – Okay.
– Then, she ended up finding a way to escape and when they told me that she had taken off,
I tried to go after her. When I tried to go after her, I just seen she turned,
but I just didn’t get to see where she turned or anything. It was basically just too late to find her. – Okay, and so then when I come into this,
I start looking for those clues. One is let’s talk about the location and where she actually lived.
Is there a location, like a boat ramp to where, that was special to you and the family that you guys would always go for like picnics
or family reunions or barbecues? And then, we’re gonna start triangulating the start of, kind of be like, “All right, within a five-mile radius,
where might she be?” – And what time was it that you last saw her when she finally did leave the house?
– I wanna say it was more or less around midnight. – [Doug] Around midnight? Okay. By chance, did she have a cellphone with her
or were there any cellphone pings? – She didn’t take anything with her. She left everything behind. – Okay, so midnight was
the last time and no cellphone? – [Bianca] Mm-hmm. No cellphone or nothing. – Okay.
So, bring me up to, I’ll just you take control of the phone. Where did your mom live? – Right here.
– Okay, and so if we take a look and we start breaking this down, so we have the Brazos River. She’s on the north side of it.
Is there a store that she would go to? If it’s midnight, is she out of alcohol at the house?
We already know she’s intoxicated. Does she want more? Did she say anything specific when she left the house?
Is there a direction of travel that you saw her leave by chance as well? – She took this street. She went here and then here. – Okay.
– And then, she ended up going here to that road. From here, I didn’t see where she went. – Okay, so she went up Rusk, left on Sherman,
and then she could’ve gone anywhere. So, your mom lives on the north side of the river, so we wanna focus on the Brazos River near town there.
– So, was there any significant places here locally where your family may have frequented?
Fishing spots? Any meaningful place that would stand out? – [Avana] Those are right here. That’s where she would always go when she wanted
to be by herself. – This park right here? – Right here on the other side where that other boat ramp is. – Okay, and that boat ramp
was really shallow. – Yeah. – [Jared] So, there’s no getting in there. And, Jacob, you were already on the water this morning.
How far down did you make it around the bend here? And did you stay on this side or were you on the other side or where were you at?
– Come over here, if you would. Let me introduce you to Jacob. – I’m Jacob. – He has a series called “Chaos Divers”
and he’s another sonar search and recovery diver as well that travels with us from time to time. And so, he’s got a boat in the water today.
We’ve got our boats as well. – When I started out, I started out here
where the boat is now and I went start over to this point. From there, I went down here about a quarter mile.
I turned back to the left and did that all the way back here. There is another, like where you come into this park,
where it looked like a straight access is. – Where the boat ramp is over here? The older boat ramp? – Yes. Yes. – All right, so that brings us to Brazos Park,
she enjoyed, is there any other parks or locations that she would ever just go park her car at, enjoy barbecues, picnics? – I mean, picnic would be
just where we used to live a while back. There was a park down the street, we had a picnic there,
but there’s really nothing else there. – So we know she did not have her cellphone with her? – Mm-hmm. – But what about financial resources?
Did she have her purse? Did she have a wallet in her vehicle? So, she had no financial resources with her when she left.
– No, she left everything. – So, we have the river to the south here that we’re really interested in, but does anything take us up here to the north?
Did she have any friends? Where did she shop? So, everything was local here? She never went out of town?
Mainly everything she did was here in Waco? – Yeah, it was everything here. – [Jared] So, based upon that information,
let’s jump over to the lake. Did she ever head out to Lake Waco by chance? – No.
– She was always in town? Never went for a drive? – No. – Well, my thoughts and feelings on this
and right now, you know, let me know what you guys think, is we just need to scan the entire river.
– Absolutely. – All the way through town. – Yes. – I think that’s our most logical. We have a dam down here, a low water dam,
so we’ll just run– – To the dam. – everything to the dam. So, based upon the distance, I’m gonna say two hours
is what it’s gonna take us. Right now, I’ve got your phone number. We’re gonna put both boats on the water right now
and we’re just gonna run the entire river through town. If we identify any vehicle at all, you know, this is not a police investigation where it’s like,
“Bianca, this is an open investigation, I’m sorry, I can’t tell you anything right now.” I’m here for you, so I’m gonna tell you everything that I know the moment that it happens.
And so, we’re gonna get on the water right now. Hang out here or your house or wherever you want to and the moment we find something I’ll tell you right where we’re at because if we find
a vehicle, we’re diving on that immediately. – And while we’re doing that, if you guys can think
of anything, it could be the smallest thing, ’cause these are the things that could lead us
to what we’re trying to do today. – All right, we’re gonna do what we can for you. – Thank you– – It’s a definitely promise. – Appreciate– – that if she’s in the water,
we will find her. – Thank you so much. – Yeah, this team will find her. – Absolutely, for sure. – Yeah. – All right, we’re gonna get in the water and get things going. – Okay. Thank you.
– You’re welcome. Thanks, Bianca. So, game planning this then. – The biggest thing we know right now is– – North side.
– North side. – I have a hard time with her going to the south side of the river, but the most logical accident location
is gonna be on University there. We don’t wanna miss anything, so don’t skip anything
in the river. Just run your sonar the entire way. I don’t care what side of the river I take. You just wanna take the north and I’ll take
the University side on the south? – So, this side on me. – Mm-hmm. – That side on you? – Yeah. – And we’ll run it all the way down to the dam.
– We wanna just keep, just going. – Yeah, just go all the way. – Just drive down and come back. – Okay, gotcha. – Just go all the way down. And then, make sure we cover the bridges really well too.
– Of course. – And then, we’ll take it all the way down to the Headwater Dam and then we’ll come back up.
– I mean, the likelihood that she’s here in Waco is very high. She did not have her cellphone. She did not have financial resources.
And, according to the family, she never left Waco. This is where she did everything. – All right, we’re gonna grab drinks,
put ’em in the boat with us, take extra fuel with us. – All right. – And let’s go find Stephanie. – Let’s go it. – Thanks, guys.
(soft music)
– [Man] The interview I did last night for the news said the same thing. (soft music)
– [Jared] All right, let’s do a quick sonar overview. If this is your first time here, we have two different systems here that we’d like to use.
First of all is the down imaging and sight imaging. And the way that this works and the way that your read it is you have depth up here and if you follow the depth,
this is the top of the boat for down imaging and anything in black is water column and so you see like 2-1/2 feet, five feet,
and this will automatically adjust as we get into deeper water. We then shoot side imaging.
This is shooting 75 feet to the left and 75 feet to the right. Again, this is our boat icon and anything
that’s black is water column. So, left of the boat, right of the boat is what we’re looking for. This is a picture in time, so this is anything
that has already happened that we have gone over. Now, we have live scope over here and this
is what’s happening in real-time, so if you see a fish swim by, it’s happening in real-time
versus a picture in time. So, if we need to go back on the screen and look at anything, we can do so here.
Anyways, so that’s kind of a good little sonar overview for you. The other thing, as we begin to scan, we’re gonna be scanning at 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 miles an hour.
We’re at nine feet right here, so distance from the ramp at nine feet this is
a good location, for sure. – I’m gonna scan this way 35 feet offshore. – Yeah, it’s not going far.
There’s no current here, hardly whatsoever. – So, we’re heading up just up the river from there.
I mean, I don’t perceive that she’s going to, if she was doing this intentionally, she’s not going to end up accidentally over the side
of that bridge. But, since we have a bridge so close to this boat ramp
we’re at right here, it’s gonna take us four minutes to check it. Let’s come check it real quick. And we’re also working with possible intoxication.
Yeah, so I mean you could end up over the bridge. (soft music) (water bubbles)
(car engines revving) (soft music)
So, we have a part of the park up there easily accessible.
Jacob has not moved, so this is no doubt a location in question. – Okay, so where
this park is right here, how far is this from her house? – Oh, first of all, this is the same park that we’re actually parked at. – Okay, we just
used an extension? – All the same park. – This is the park she would come to with her family. – And she did point up here.
She would come up there, but she meant the same park we were at, so maybe the park. – Yeah, Jacob may already be on our target today.
Jacob tried calling me. Let’s see what Jacob’s got to say. – Hey, Jared. – Are you on there?
– [Jacob] Yeah, there’s a vehicle here. – Small Kia? What do you think? – Yeah. Yeah.
It’s 13, I want to say 13, shape is maybe 14 feet or less.
I’m gonna say that it’s possibly her. – Okay, I may agree with you. I mean, this is, like you said, the park not far
from her house and easy access into it. Anyway, we’re coming up to you. We’re almost there. Let’s call Bianca. – Hello?
– Hey, Bianca. Hey, we’re on the east side of the park here. We have a vehicle that we’re marking
and we’re gonna be diving on. So, it’s the last pavilion on the east side
of the park here. – Okay. – So, come down here, okay? – And there’s a ramp too. – Okay. Bye. There’s a ramp here. Dude, I didn’t even see
that ramp on the map. I didn’t know there was another boat ramp there. – So, it’s got some debris
on the upstream side. – Yeah. – [Doug] I think I see two wheels, right?
Do you see those wheels? – Yeah. Flip it a little more. – [Doug] Yup, they’re there. There’s the front end. – [Jared] It’s only eight feet wide though. – [Doug] That’s fine.
We’re talking about a tiny Kia. It does like like, yeah. – It looks buried. Like it has a whole bunch of debris against it. – [Doug] It’s possible with the way we’ve seen
that this river flows. I mean, we’re getting the square shape of that, but if you look at it also, I think we’re getting
a lot of the debris that’s pushed up against it. I think we might have more than one vehicle out here. (boat engine revving)
We might have another vehicle right here. Jacob, Jake, Jake, I have another vehicle right here. I have a vehicle upside down. Looks like the butt end is straight up.
Yeah, no, the wheels look like they’re facing straight up. I think we have two vehicles here. I mean, I’ve got a solid right here.
– Are you down imaging? – Yeah, look there. And then, this one over here we have a potential as well
with a big debris pile. But then we have, oh, they have another vehicle too. We have another one out here too.
So, we’ve got that one there, this one here that might be a debris pile in a car, and then we have a third one.
So, let me drop you on shore and I’ll come mark these other ones. – Yeah. – [Jared] Let’s get you and Doug to shore,
get you guys suited up. I’ll come mark this other one that’s closest and we’ll just go down the line with them.
– Hey, Doug, I’ll be down here to the other end of the park. There’s another boat ramp down here and we found
two or three vehicles. – I want you to remain optimistic. We do have a potential three cars here.
We won’t know until we dive on them for sure. We may find a lot of cars today, so just keep aware of that, you know?
We don’t wanna sit here and lead you to believe this is your mom. It very well could be, but just remain optimistic
and we’ll know. I’m gonna suit up and I’ll be in there and we’ll get these identified and we’ll know here shortly, okay?
(soft music)
– [Man] You’re good to go. – [Man] Flippers on.
(soft, dramatic music)
– [Jared] Go out to those other two, I’ll work on it. (soft, dramatic music)
Now we have both Doug and Jacob down on separate cars.
Within the next three minutes, we’re gonna know if Stephanie is at this location. (soft, dramatic music)
– [Man] Keeping watch. (soft, dramatic music)
– It’s too big. It’s like a van or something. Man, real big. No plate.
I can’t tell what it is. – All right, so I’m leaving this marker on for coordinates. I know that’s the van.
I’m gonna scan some more here. God, out of three cars, you wanna be so hopeful
that you’re give Bianca and her family answers and then to have those two not be it.
Jake wasn’t able to tell you. He said it’s too dark over here. He has no idea. (soft, dramatic music)
I don’t know why he’s been down there for, I think we’re going on like seven minutes now. If it is Stephanie, then he’s doing everything he can to,
are there any windows down to clear the vehicle? I don’t remember on sonar. I think this one was upside down, but I can’t remember.
(soft, dramatic music)
– He’s going over the windows are up and the windows are down, recovery points, the way the wheels are at, et cetera.
Maybe even trying to make confirmation of contents. (soft, dramatic music)
– What color was the car? – Blue. – Silver or blue-ish? – Yes.
– It’s a Kia. (Bianca cries) – It’s still not guaranteed at this point, okay?
We’re gonna call 9-1-1 right now, okay? And we can call the detective and then we’re gonna come up
with a game plan to get this out, okay? Do you wanna continue to verify before I call? – Yes. Yes.
Let me put another tank and we’ll both go back down and just do as much as we can. – Okay. – So we know.
– Do you happen to have a picture of your mom’s care by chance? The actual car? – We don’t have a full picture. (phone beeping)
– I don’t know if you can see this, right? This is the front of it. – Can you verify the wheels?
The wheels have hubcaps on them, not an actual, not chrome wheels.
No, there’ll be a circle on the actual wheel on the inside. – Yeah and that’s yup. And it’s five? – And five star.
So, five star hub cap. That’s what you have? Okay.
– [Rustin] This is Detective Rustin Thompson with the Waco Police Department Special Crimes Unit. I’m not at my desk. Please leave a voicemail message after the beep.
(phone beeps) – Hey, Jared Leisek “Adventures with a Purpose.” We spoke about looking for Stephanie Torres.
Anyway, we do believe that we have identified her vehicle and we’re going to call 9-1-1, and get some detective out here.
It is down here. All right, thanks, bye. – [Operator] 9-1-1, location of your emergency? – Yeah, we’re at Brazos Park east at the east boat ramp. – Okay, what’s going on?
– So, we’re an underwater sonar search and recovery dive team that is in your area working the missing person’s case of Stephanie Torres
from December 21, 2017. We’ve been on the river for a couple of hours
and we have what we believe have located her vehicle in about 15 feet of water, 45 feet off of
the boat ramp in the water. So, we need an officer down here, so we can coordinate and start coming up with a game plan to recover this vehicle
and see if Mrs. Torres is inside of it. – [Operator] We’ll send an officer that’s
for that (indistinct) to your location. – Perfect. – And then, they can make contact with the Special Investigations
and you probably need a professional there. Okay, Jared, we’ll get somebody out there as soon as we can, okay? – Sounded good. Thanks, ma’am.
– Mm-hmm. – All right. Bye. So, I’ve tried calling the detective. He didn’t answer, so I left him a voice message.
We’ve also called 9-1-1, so there is a officer on the way down right now and then I’ll coordinate with them and we’ll work on whether they
have a dive team, they’re going to extract it, we’re going to extract it. Right now, Doug and Jacob are gonna head back in,
just get some additional visual and what needs to take place in order to bring the vehicle out today. – Okay.
– Right now, we’re fairly confident we found your mom’s vehicle. It does not mean that your mother’s inside either,
so please keep that in mind as well that we’re going through these different steps for you. We’re always hopeful for you that today
you’re gonna have those answers that you’ve been looking for for the last four years. (music drowns out speakers) (soft, dramatic music)
– [Doug] Hey, Jacob. (soft, dramatic music)
– The vehicle is upside down, easy to get to the wheels. Easy to chain it? Just a nice slow pull and do it.
(cellphone rings) Spoke with all the officers. They’re putting all their heads together. They’re the first ones on the scene, so their higher ups will continue to come down.
They’re gonna figure out who, whether it’s us, somebody else. At the end of the day, I told them preferably– – It doesn’t matter, yeah. – Preferably, we prefer
not to do it for liability, but if they need us to we’ll offer up and do whatever we can for them. – Absolutely.
– Anyway, I suspect it’s probably gonna be at least an hour before a real game is put into motion
and then probably at least three or four hours before anything really does happen. – Okay. – That’s my thought on this one.
Doug’s down there right now still? – He’s doing a thorough search on it. I wanted to verify that I seen what I seen
and I came back up. He’s doing the thorough search, making sure everything, getting good hook points and stuff like that.
– Okay. All right, sounds good. And we’re actually 50 feet up in that, right? – 50. – 60? – 55, 60.
Because they got extra. – See his bubbles there. – I’m talking about the rope line that you have on there, it’s 50 foot and we put the– – That’s a 60.
– Oh, was it 60? – Yeah. – So, 65 then. – Yeah, okay. In a river like this, more often than not,
the vehicle is going to go in and the reason why it’s upside down is because engine bay is heavier,
so then the vehicle goes upside down. It’s like a turtle, so regardless of whatever floods
came through the last four years, you can see this vehicle has not moved. When a vehicle goes in, it’s going to sit on the bottom.
All the water, logs, everything, you’re gonna pass right over the top of it. It’s also closer to shore, so it’s not catching every,
all that other debris that’s on that other vehicle. – I appreciate your help a lot.
I wasn’t expecting this. – [Jared] We’ll have answers for you today, okay?
– Thank you. – You’re welcome. (water bubbling)
Can you verify the wheels? The wheels have hubcaps on them, not an actual,
not chrome wheels. There’ll be a circle on the actual wheel on the inside, so five star hubcap.
(water bubbling) (soft music)
– Definitely a Kia. It’s a Kia, it’s the same hubcaps that were in the picture.
It’s definitely a Kia. Definitely silver blue toned. And it’s the same exact hubcaps that were in a picture.
We got to rig all four wheels. It’s easy to do. I want us to do it.
All four wheels we use the soft straps, but we put the front end on a separate line than the rear.
And just slowly tug at the front end. – Bring the front end– – That’s way it’s not, it’s just a complete rip and all the sections ripping
the windshield out. The only way you can do that is the same scenario. We wanna just tug on the front end just a little
and that’s the only way. (soft, dramatic music)
(music drowns out speakers) – Right here on the other side.
(soft, dramatic music)
– [Doug] That’s gonna come together. (music drowns out speakers)
– We’re gonna follow that one right out to the (indistinct).
– [Man] Watch the yellow box there. (group chattering)
– Well, I mean, he’s got it. – Oh, he’s got that one. – [Man] Bobby, he’s got the one that
we don’t have tied up. – Okay. All right. – It just broke free. We got all the bubbles. – Good.
– [Man] We pulled out one from here long ago, eight months ago. (group chattering)
(soft, dramatic music) – [Woman] Late in the day, the car was on land.
Police confirmed it was indeed Stephanie Torres’ vehicle. – [Woman] The family in tears as they watch
the vehicle being pulled from the water inside a bone fragment now being sent for testing.
– Perfect. – Good job, man. – I reckon– – And it should pivot on its own. Yeah, I don’t have to tell you,
you know exactly what you’re doing. – [Man] Looks like he’s done this a time or two, huh?
– [Bianca] I mean, she was a hard-working mom. Basically, a mom that anybody would actually want.
– [Jonathan] She never failed to make sure we had our essentials. (soft, dramatic music)
– [Woman] Do you feel like you never got that moment to say goodbye? – [Jonathan] That’s what kills me every day.
I never got to say goodbye. (group chattering)
– [Man] See that going? If I didn’t go to that wheel completely
then it’s evenly, you know? – It just wasn’t– – Huh? – It just wasn’t hooked right.
Yeah, there she is right there. – (indistinct) – Yup.
– [Jared] She’s in there.
On the driver’s side. – You can see it? – Yeah, yeah, she’s there. (soft, dramatic music)
– [Man] I’m going to have to set it here and regroup completely before we start trying to go up over with it. – Okay, okay. – I’m gonna need to pull that strap from there.
– So, she’s hanging right on the other side of that door area right there. – I can see it. – Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(soft, dramatic music)
– Huh? – Low horizontal right here.
– [Man] I bet it’s hard to do it (indistinct). – Fish it. – He starting to do it.
– [Man] He’s not going to do it on the ground as it is. – Yes. Yes.
Carson, you got a good angle, but you’re gonna wanna make sure you’re over there.
– You’re gonna wanna (indistinct). – [Jared] I think it’ll work. I think it’ll work beautifully just like you are.
Hey, Doug? – Yeah.
– I saw. I’m like 99% sure. I saw her taken out the driver’s side.
I saw the (music drowns out speaker). (soft, dramatic music)
(group chattering)
– [Jared] They’re gonna suck it down. – On us? – I understand that.
I was telling him (indistinct). Well, what I do is I pay attention to the situation
in all awareness. (music drowns out speaker)
– [Jared] Yeah? (engine rumbling)
Well, she was. She was hanging right there. (engine rumbling)
– [Man] Hold it steady. It’s gonna have to drop on the bed like this.
– It’s definitely her car. Same discoloration, paint peeling on the front hood. (engine rumbling)
They’re taking forensic pictures. I mean, from what I saw and was able to get up there and see, it’s positive identification for me.
Obviously, they have to do their procedures with forensics before they can make an identification
or any statement whatsoever, but this is the vehicle,
same vehicle we’re looking for, same color, same hood characteristics with the paint peeling and we have human remains in the back.
So, this is not a good outcome, but it’s a necessary outcome for the family
that they have answers. (soft music)
– So, we do have confirmation that there are human remains inside of the vehicle.
Is there any information I can help you with at this time? Family just needs time.
Anything else I can do for you? (soft, dramatic music)
– No. (soft, dramatic music)
– People still care and that’s one of the things that I was really bothered by when you and I first spoke.
Bianca, you found out about us, why didn’t you reach out and your words were, “I didn’t think that anybody would care”
and the world cares, we care. There’s a lot of people out there that still have, you know, we hope to continue to restore faith in humanity.
And that, it’s bittersweet that your mom’s no longer with us, but you now have your mom home.
You’ve got an incredible family here and have a support group. If you need anything else from me, you’ve got my number,