Click the arrow below for more coverage of Kiely Rodni, a Northern California teenager who was possibly found by a group of volunteer divers after she had been missing since early August
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The body found Sunday in a vehicle submerged in a Northern California reservoir is “probably” that of Kiely Rodni, local sheriff’s officials said Monday, after a sweeping 16-day search for the missing teenager that included what an official law enforcement called an “astronomical” number of resources.
While authorities were unable to “positively identify” the remains found inside a silver Honda CR-V pulled from Prosser Creek Reservoir on Sunday, Nevada County Sheriff Shannan Moon said officials “believe” the body it was of the 16-year-old Truckee girl. it had disappeared earlier this month from a large party several hundred feet away from the discovery site.
“We passed the vehicle last night,” Moon said during Monday’s news conference in Truckee. “We found a deceased person inside the vehicle. We believe he is our missing person. We have not been able to determine positively, but it is more than likely.”
Authorities said an autopsy will be performed Tuesday, as well as a toxicology report. Results from these findings may take six to eight weeks to be finalized.
Family members sit along the wall as they listen to Nevada County Sheriff’s Capt. Sam Brown answer questions from the press about Kiley Rodney Monday at the Truckee Donner Recreation and Park District offices in Truckee. Sara Nevis [email protected]
Asked at Monday’s news conference if there were signs of foul play, Capt. Sam Brown of the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office said authorities could not comment on that possibility at this time. But Brown also said he had “no reason to believe” the vehicle had been anywhere other than water since Kiely’s disappearance.
Officials said the FBI is currently evaluating the vehicle and assisting in this phase of the investigation.
Authorities on Monday did not provide details on what may have led to the vehicle wreck.
“It’s still an active investigation,” Moon told reporters. “And I understand that we will continue to receive many questions about our investigation. And we will release what we can. But right now, our commitment is to this family.”
Brown said the task force looking for Kiely Connected Adventures With Purpose with a Placer County sheriff’s sergeant just learned that volunteers are interested in lending their expertise to the search. He said authorities shared with the volunteer divers detailed information about the ongoing search that had not been made public in hopes it would help authorities find Kiely’s SUV.
“I think that’s a great question, that’s a question that everybody’s going to have,” Brown told reporters. “How come we didn’t find it when we were looking for (this area)?”
He said the tank was extensively searched with divers, sonar and other equipment. Brown said he hoped to learn more about what they may have missed when they meet with Adventures With Purpose for an afternoon briefing.
He said underwater tracking is an “extremely difficult thing” and they hope to learn how to improve their search techniques and law enforcement’s use of high-tech equipment, which Brown and AWP said takes a lot of practice and expertise. .
“And I think that’s where a group like Adventures With Purpose can focus and practice those skills and improve them,” Brown said. “We’re thankful they were able to get out and locate it.”
Ann Riordan, of Tahoe City, is a longtime friend of the Rodni family. He said he always said Kiely would be found safe. She was initially saddened and shocked to hear that Kiely’s vehicle had been found and is still coming to terms with the reality.
“I’m not sure how I feel. In a way, I’m very happy because the torturers don’t know and don’t think about the (worst) alternatives,” Riordan told The Sacramento Bee after the news conference.
Lindsey Rodni-Nieman and her family members sat quietly in chairs to the side of the 20-minute press conference. They did not speak to reporters on Monday and left after the news conference ended.
In a written statement released hours after the press conference, the Rodni-Nieman family thanked those who had shown them “love and support” over the past two weeks as they “weathered a storm of unfathomable power.”
“As we accept the sadness cast under the shadow of death, the rising sun shines upon us, reminding us not to mourn our loss, but to celebrate Kiely’s spirit and the gift we all received from knowing her,” she said. family in the announcement. shared on social media. “Kiely will definitely stay with us, even though we won’t be taking her back.”
Riordan and a group of residents from the west shore of Lake Tahoe, where Kiely grew up, attended Monday’s news conference to show their support for the teenager’s family.
“We just want to help, we just don’t know how,” Riordan said, holding a small bouquet of flowers she brought for Rodney-Nieman.
For the past two weeks, Riordan said she has been going to the Truckee Community Center almost every day to meet with Kiely’s family and friends, along with volunteers, who have been searching for the missing teenager.
She and a friend at one point joined the search at the Prosser Family Campgrounds. Riordan also helped volunteers post hundreds of flyers in the area.
“A lot of my friends were involved in the search,” said Riordan, who has lived in the area for about 45 years. “I have not been impressed by the community support. And it really shows. Small towns, big hearts. This is us.”
Pamela Dalton, whose granddaughter is one of Keeley’s best friends, said she was heartbroken that it took so long to find Keeley, but she’s happy she’s going home to her mother.
“We had hopes that we would find her. we didn’t know under what circumstances,” Dalton said. “We were worried about the kidnapping, mostly. After nine, 10 days, we started to think she was being held against her will. There is comfort in knowing that she was not held against her will.’
Dalton attended Monday’s press conference. Her granddaughter did not attend. Dalton said her granddaughter had hoped her friend would be safe and was very upset to hear the news. She said Kiely was a beautiful person and a talented musical connoisseur.
“She took a wrong turn coming out of the camp, but she was home like she told her mother,” Dalton said after the press conference. “It was dark out there. If you get turned around, you can really get into trouble. And I think that’s what happened.”
A team of volunteer divers on Sunday located the vehicle and the presumed body of Kiely Rodni, as law enforcement officials and volunteers continued a massive search campaign for her. Authorities had spent nearly 20,000 hours searching the area. Investigators received more than 1,800 tips from citizens about Kiely’s disappearance.
Adventures with Purpose announced in a Facebook post that its dive team searching Prosser Creek Reservoir found Rodni’s vehicle upside down in 14 feet of water with a body inside the silver Honda CR-V. The dive team said it had been in the water using sonar boats for 35 minutes when it spotted the vehicle 55 feet from shore and less than a quarter mile south of the campsite.
Authorities on Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, said the body found in a vehicle at Prosser Creek Reservoir was likely that of Kiely Rodni, the missing 16-year-old Truckee teenager who went missing after a party at a nearby campground. Placer County Sheriff’s Office
The Sheriff’s Office’s Brown said the hard work put in by so many law enforcement officials and volunteers should not be overlooked. He said they eliminated several areas they would still be searching this weekend.
Kiely went missing around 12:30 am. on Aug. 6 after attending a party of between 200 and 300 teenagers and young adults at the Prosser Family Campground, located inside the Tahoe National Forest, according to the Placer County Sheriff’s Office and the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office.
The recovery area was located about a quarter mile south of the main camping area and about 700 feet from a dirt road surrounding the reservoir.
Adventures with Purpose is an “underwater sonar search and recovery dive team that helps families locate their missing loved ones underwater,” according to its verified Facebook page.
Sheriff’s authorities reported Kiely as a missing person the same day she disappeared. The next day, the teenager’s mother, Lindsey Rodni-Nieman, spoke in a video released by the Placer County Sheriff’s Office. Through tears, she pleaded for help to locate her daughter.
The sheriff’s office provided multiple updates each day immediately after the teenager went missing, urging anyone with information about the girl’s whereabouts to come forward and setting up an anonymous tip line.
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