YouTuber helps solve tragic cold missing persons case 16 years after woman first went missing
A YouTuber who is on a mission to solve some of America's most baffling cold cases managed to get to the bottom of a disappearance which stumped investigators for 16 years.
Jeremy Beau Sides, the bloke behind the 'Exploring With Nug' channel, has a knack for deciphering bizarre missing person cases in the US which have gone unsolved for decades.
The scuba diver and metal detectorist, who boasts over 637,000 subscribers on YouTube, simply wants to help bring closure to families who have been left in the dark about what happened to their loved ones.
And he does a great job of it - as Jeremy has already managed a series of incredible solves, such as tracking down two high school students who vanished in April 2000 after 21 years of the case being shrouded in mystery.
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And in November 2021, he helped figured out what had happened to Miriam Ruth Hemphill.
The 84-year-old disappeared in July 2005 from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, after leaving her home in her 1999 Buick LeSabre.
After she failed to return, her husband Bill reported her missing.
But with little leads to go off, the case eventually went cold - leaving the widower suspecting that his spouse was dead and that she had driven her car into a lake.
Three months before Miriam went missing, the couple's daughter Connie Hemphill Skapik, 44, was found dead in her car in Dayton, Ohio, and her death was ruled a suicide.
Bill told police that his wife had left a note which discussed their daughter's death, while he also found a newspaper clipping in their home of an article about a person who had driven into a lake.
Tragically, Bill passed away in 2016 at the age of 95, without knowing Miriam's fate - which was only discovered five years later thanks to Jeremy's hard work.
In a video documenting a dive in Melton Hill Lake in the city of Oak Ridge, the content creator explained: "About two days ago, I was out here scanning this river. I scanned the whole thing and I ended up finding like six or seven cars.
"Right off the rocks there's two cars - one looks to be a four-door car. The other one looks to be compact, maybe a Miata, a Corvette, or something like that. It very well could be Miriam in one of the cars.
"If not though, the cars don't belong in there so we're going to see if we can find the tags, identify the car, see if anybody's in them and if not we'll come out show the cops what we found and see what they think.
"There's a lot of mystery surrounding these cars. Hopefully, we'll get to the bottom of it, figure out why they're in here and ultimately, if it is Miriam, we can bring her home. Because she doesn't belong in this river."
And that's exactly what he did, using sonar technology.
Jeremy explained the plan was to find the cars, mark them with the magnet and then dive on them.
He reassured viewers that he would take 'appropriate action' if they did track down Miriam, which was all riding on the license plate on the car.
Alongside his diving pal, Jeremy headed down to the wreckage and was left stunned when the registration matched Miriam's - as he could be heard saying: "It's her! Are you serious? Oh my God, it's her."
They retrieved the license plate as proof to show the police, while the YouTuber then talked viewers through the state of the car - explaining the back windows were both down, while the two front ones were up.
"It's filled almost to the ceiling with with mud, so if she's in there, she's buried," Jeremy said.
After emerging from the water, he alerted authorities about the discovery, who then rushed to the scene.
Jeremy described the incident as 'unbelievable'.
He explained: "This was not the the the car that I thought was going to be Miriam. I really didn't. I thought these were going to be two stolen cars and then we was just going to keep searching.
"We can't confirm that there's anybody inside the car but we got the tag and that that is the kind of car so, I mean we're 99% that is Miriam."
Officials then arrived with specialist divers and rescue teams, who then hauled the car out of Melton Hill Lake.
Oak Ridge Police confirmed they had received a tip from private divers regarding the vehicle, which contained human remains, before it was pulled out of the water shortly before 8pm that same day.
As Jeremy watched authorities remove Miriam's car 16 years after her disappearance, he said: "Man, that is really impressive. There she goes. Miriam Ruth Hemphill, she's going home.
"Oh my gosh, dude, there you have it - we solved the case. Miriam Ruth Hemphill is out of the water she's going to get a proper burial. I am so ecstatic about that...
"I didn't think one of those cars was her. But 16 years of her sitting in that one spot and we've found her and we got her home and now the family gets closure, everybody gets closure.
"So this was a very amazing feeling. I'm so glad I got to share it with all of you wonderful viewers and this is not the last case, I am just getting started."
Olivia Burke