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Authorities pull car from Sulphur River
By Bill Hankins
The Paris News
Published December 29, 2009
ENLOE — A partially submerged car spotted by workers rebuilding a bridge over the Sulphur River has provided a mystery to law enforcement officers in Delta County.
Rescue workers, fire departments and law enforcement officers responded from Delta County and Lamar County to the scene shortly after noon Monday.
A fire department team reached the car by boat, but found it unoccupied.
“The key was in the ignition and the car was riddled with gunshots,” a fire department rescue worker said.
The car was spotted at the Sulphur River approximately 400 yards upstream from the bridge under repair on Farm Road 2675. The Sulphur River divides Delta County and Lamar County.
The vehicle was nearest the Delta County side of the Sulphur River, and fire departments in Delta County, investigators from the Delta County Sheriff’s Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety responded.
Firemen went into the water to attach a line from a tow truck to pull the vehicle up from the nearly 30 feet deep embankment along the Sulphur River.
All the windows in the Red Honda Civic had been either broken or shot out.
“We ran the tags to find out whose car it was,” said DPS trooper Austin Crittenden, who works out of the Delta County DPS office. “The tags were expired, but we found out who was the last registered owner of the car. We are now trying to make contact to find out if it was sold and to whom.”
Delta County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Harold Watkins said late Monday no one has any idea of why the car was in the river.
It apparently had plunged down the nearly 30-foot embankment into the river bed, which Monday had five to eight feet of water.
Investigators said it could have been there a few days and for a while could have been covered by the flowing river.
“When the waters became lower, the car became visible,” a fire department spokesman said.
When the vehicle was pulled from the river, investigators went to work gathering information on the contents, trying to determine what had happened.
It took more than four hours from the time it was reported to get the car out of the river bed. The vehicle was towed to Cooper for further inspection.
Watkins said the investigation is continuing to find out why the car was in the river.
“The gunshots could have been made by someone just shooting at an old car in the river, ” he said.
But the circumstances of who put the car there and why remains a mystery.
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