from http://www.theprovince.com/Body+have...417/story.html

By Damian Inwood, The Province
April 27, 2010 10:55 AM


What started out as an Earth Day cleanup turned into a grisly discovery that left Penticton divers in stunned shock.


And RCMP are trying to figure out the identity of the adult human remains found inside a rusted car hulk pulled from Skaha Lake.


"Everybody that was involved was quite shocked," Steve Toth, 51, of Oceantec Scuba in Penticton, said Monday. "We were all looking at it, dazed, stunned, wondering, 'What the heck?'"


Toth said he and Oceantec owner Kevin Aschhoff discovered the car last August in about 10 metres of water, beneath a scenic lookout on Highway 97, about four kilometres south of Penticton.
They notified the RCMP that they planned to raise the car, possibly a 1964 Chrysler 300, and went ahead Sunday.


"We found it upside-down, in the mud," he said. "It'd been there for a lot of years. We air-bagged it and brought it gently to the surface and then towed it from the Skaha lookout, across the lake."
It was when a tow truck hooked the car and flipped it over that things turned macabre.


"As soon as the car flipped, things flew out of the vehicle," said Toth. "I wasn't sure what it was when I first saw it. It looked like a skull, but I was kind of in shock.


"There was a leg bone and clothing sticking out of the window."


Toth said Oceantec divers are going out with the RCMP dive team today to show them exactly where everything was.


"I've heard rumours that there were no barriers there in those days," added Toth. "Someone could have just driven off there and nobody would have known any difference."


RCMP Sgt. Rick Dellebuur said the car had no licence plates and there was only a partial VIN number.


"That's making it a little more difficult for us," he said. "A lot of vehicles used to go off that corner."
He said police aren't aware of any local files of missing persons that match the car's description.
The car may have been in the water for about 30 years.


"It could be anybody from Ontario or Vancouver that's been out visiting," he added.


dinwood@theprovince.com
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