He went to get cigarettes. Ten years later his car was found in a pond.

One morning in late December 2013, Donald L. Erwin, a 59-year-old disabled veteran, told his wife he was going to buy cigarettes.

He often woke up before dawn and was a heavy smoker. She went back to sleep. Sometime after 6 a.m., Mr. Erwin got into his silver Hyundai and left his mobile home in the downtown Ozarks.

He never came back.

For nearly a decade, Mr. Erwin’s family, along with some friends and local residents, have scoured the lakes and valleys of the hilly area near his home in Camdenton, Missouri, looking for clues. “I haven’t stopped for nine years,” Mr. Erwin’s sister, Yvonne Erwin-Bowen, said in an interview, noting that she would travel from her home in Kansas City at least twice a year to search. Mr Erwin’s wife has now passed away.

Last year, Ms. Erwin-Bowen, 62, began to lose steam. “I didn’t look for my brother once,” she said. “I literally put it in God’s hands.”

Then last month, Ms. Erwin-Bowen received a call from a friend: a diver had found her brother’s car about five miles from his home, submerged in a pond. The car, a 2002 Elantra, was picked up from a private lot in southern Camden County on Dec. 16, according to a police spokesman. press release from the local authorities. A few days later, detectives and cadaver dogs human remains found and an artificial hip that matched Mr. Erwin’s, authorities said.

The diver, James Hinkle, said in an interview that he became aware of the case about two years ago and began methodically searching bodies of water near Mr. Erwin’s home in a kayak equipped with sonar equipment and with a drone .

On the afternoon of December 14, Mr. Hinkle, whose volunteer dive search and recovery team runs a YouTube channel, decided to search a pond on a private property when he saw a tire floating in the water. “That made my nerves jump,” he said. Using a drone, Mr. Hinkle then observed a light, square object in the water. As he started to bring the drone closer, he added, “it looked more and more like a car.”

Two days later, Mr. Hinkle returned to the site with his kayak, an underwater camera and a magnet tied to a rope, which he dropped on the car as a guide. Sheriff’s deputies and detectives, along with divers from the local fire department, were able to reach the car and match the license plate to Mr. Erwin’s. A local towing company then helped remove the car from the pond.

The grim discovery has brought a confusing mix of closure, elation and renewed pain to those who spent years there looking for Mr. Erwin. “It’s a new heartbreak,” said Mrs. Erwin-Bowen, his sister. “Even though I knew in my heart he was gone – accepting the reality is something completely different.”

Mr. Erwin, who was also known as “Donnie,” served in the Navy during the Vietnam War and later moved to Georgia, she said. But a rare condition led to him losing a leg. Ultimately, Mr. Erwin lost his job as a programmer at Mitsubishi, she said.

Eventually, Mr. Erwin, his wife and son moved to a mobile home in the Ozarks. Shortly before Mr. Erwin’s death, he learned he would likely have to have his second leg amputated, Ms. Erwin-Bowen said. “My brother did what he did because he didn’t want to burden anyone,” she added, noting that she believed he committed suicide.

“People always say that when you find that loved one, you get closure,” she added. “No, you don’t, because you will never understand.”

More than 24,000 people remain missing in the United States, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. Other cold cases have been solved for the authorities by amateurs. In 2021, a YouTuber found a car belonging to two Tennessee teens who had been missing for 21 years; another search and recovery dive group claims it has helped resolve 29 such cases.

Ms Erwin-Bowen said she hoped her family’s story would encourage others in similar situations not to lose hope. “Never stop looking, the answer is out there,” she said. “Never give up.”