Courtney Balcombe

Creative Editor

clb6264@psu.edu

True crime has become a part of many people’s lives since the COVID-19 pandemic began. For one YouTube channel duo, their passion for scuba diving has found a new way of solving cold cases.

According to Audacity, a group of YouTubers called the Chaos Divers travel the country working to solve cold cases. In the last two months, they’ve located seven missing people. Jacob Grubbs, who founded the group, said they use revenue generated by clicks and views on YouTube to pay for future searches. Along with Grubbs, Eric Bussick is another diver from Chaos Divers.

Grubbs has turned what started as an environmental cleanup YouTube channel into a community dedicated to solving cold cases and locating deceased missing persons in the water. So far, Grubbs has been able to help families from Ohio to Texas. However, they are still struggling with a few cold cases.

Chaos Divers solved their first case in 2019 in St. Louis after partnering up with Adventures with Purpose, AWP, to recover Nathaniel Ashby’s body from the river after he had been missing since July 2019.

According to NBC News, Ashby was last seen driving to work in his 1994 Chevy; however, he never made it to work. His family was contacted by the Chaos Divers, who offered their services to help find their son. The family then sent them to the Warren County Sheriff’s Department, which was then able to connect Chaos Divers to AWP.

“To see the family’s eyes and them being relieved as we actually pulled Nathan out of the water was an indescribable feeling,” Grubbs said. “The feeling that you get with telling the family, yes, at the time it’s heartbreaking. But yet the next day or couple hours after you have that feeling of relief that the family has answers now.”

Grubbs later met Lindsay Bussick while working on another case. She was then asked to be his “Chaos Coordinator” and aid him on recovery missions.

“It’s been an amazing feeling, particularly when we were able to solve a case after 23 years in October,” Grubbs said about the following case.

According to Southern Illinois, in September 2021, Grubbs, Eric, and Lindsay set off with AWP for their 44-day cold case trip across the U.S. On one trip, Chaos Divers and AWP solved a case that is one of Grubbs’s most memorable recoveries, that of a pregnant 19-year-old and her 22-month-old child. Samantha Hopper and Courtney Holt went missing on September 11, 1998, leaving behind a second daughter, Dezarea Carpenter.

In late October 2021, more than 23 years after Hopper and Holt disappeared, Hopper’s blue Ford Tempo was pulled from a lake in Russellville, Arkansas. Their remains were found inside.

“The most memorable [case] was Samantha Hopper,” Grubbs said. “I think that case will stick with me for the rest of my life. It was a blessing to bring her home, but it was heart-wrenching to know there’s a child in the back and she’ll never get a chance in life.”

Carpenter had told Grubbs that when she was little, she thought her mother had abandoned her, Grubbs said. However, not every case leads to a successful recovery, such as Hopper’s.

One case in particular that followed Hopper’s was that of an Ohio couple, Joni Davis and Brian Goff, who went missing in 2018. The Chaos Divers were originally in Ohio looking for Karen Adams, who went missing in 2011, yet when they had no results for Adams, Grubbs and Bussick began a search for Davis and Goff.

While driving along Restaurant Road, the pair had heard this was the last road Goff and Davis were last phone pinged on. They followed the road until they came to the Ohio River, in which Grubbs prepared to go into the water and look for their car.

According to Southern Illinois, after finding the couple and their car at the bottom of the Ohio River, the event sent chills through Grubb. Telling the loved ones of Goff and Davis they had found them was a surreal experience for Bussick and Grubbs. However, letting Adams’ family know they had not been able to find her was devastating.

“It’s heartbreaking finding something that doesn’t belong to them, the family,” Bussick said. “I’d rather not find anything at all because it is excruciating and to have the family looking at you from shore and to have to say there is a vehicle right here, but it isn’t yours. You just gave them this mountain of hope to climb up and then you’ve got to come up and tell them that. I’d rather tell them we found their loved one because at least that night they are going to go to lay down for the first time and know where their person is.”

However, as of December 2021, Grubbs and Bussick do plan to return to Ohio and continue their search for Adams.

According to The U.S. Sun, between October and December 2021, the Chaos Divers solved a total of seven cases by themselves, along with helping AWP to solve an additional 16 cases in 45 days.