The Cold, Dark Water | Chapter 6

This podcast is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised. November 2nd, 2023 marked 16 years to the day that Justin Gaines went missing. When Erica Wilson told me about the recent lead she'd received regarding a particular cove at Lake Lanier, I was determined to do everything I could to follow it through to the end. Because even if it's a long shot, someone has to at least try. Recently, within the last maybe year or so, I had a gentleman reach out to me and said he spoke with someone that used to date Martin Wilkie. And this guy said he asked the girl, hey, what about Justin Gaines? And the girl says, well, yeah, everyone knows they put him in the toolbox and they moved him to this location. They gave me a specific location. I hadn't told anyone about it for a very long time because I don't feel like I could trust anyone. Having people tell her information about her son is nothing new to Erica. So much of it over the years has been completely unfounded. Erica and her family have been through this so many times that it's become hard to get excited by tips anymore. It's frustrating to get their hopes up and then have them crushed again and again. This time, however, she received a specific location allegedly told from Martin Wilkie, the man who was arrested for concealing her son's death in 2015. This time, she had to tell someone just in case. I felt relieved. I mean, for all this time I've been holding him like, what was supposed to do? What was supposed to do? And I felt relieved telling someone about it. I'd be horrible if in all this time, uh, you don't, you know, or if that toolbox is really where they say it is. And, you know, I could have answers, but we never looked for it. The lead pointed to a particular cove at Lake Lanier, the lake on which both Andy Pickens and Martin Wilkie's houseboat sat and where we're told Justin was submerged after being placed in the large toolbox. At least that's one story. Another is that he had cement blocks tied to his neck and feet and was placed in the toolbox when he was removed from the lake to be transported to a well, if you're to believe either story. But so much of this case revolves around this particular body of water. The massive, picturesque lake is a retreat for locals from the Atlanta summer heat. Nearly 700 miles of shoreline, spread over 69 square miles, provides beaches and swimming spots, boating and fishing. That same shoreline snakes in and out of forest land and fields and butts up to private properties where multi-million dollar homes sit. When I discussed the lead with Mike Rising, he wasn't optimistic at all. He felt he had other leads that were more promising to focus on. That story, I don't think that's even a theory. They took him and decided to come over this area and that's where we have this shotgun of stories of where, where he's been buried over the years. I got my own level where I feel like this is worth digging up. And what is that? I mean, what, where do you draw that distinguishable line between this is? I want to, I want to co-conspirator to point it out to me. Right now, the typical leads are coming from ex-girlfriends and friends that are in jail that are trying to cut a deal and they'll hear the story. And we've had leads come in since I started the project. Process. And most, for the most part, I'm going, eh, okay, no, this one doesn't. These are lookalike, I call them lookalike leads. That does not mean I'm not going to cover them, but I'm not going to go running out. At my request, Mike put in a call to Hall County, Georgia, where the jurisdiction of this part of the lake resides. But they apparently had no interest in following this lead because he never heard back from them. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of coves, big and small on Lake Lanier. That is to say, if you don't have some idea of exactly where you're going to be looking for something in the water, don't even bother. There's just too much area to cover. But that's the one thing we have going for us. An exact area to search. From Waveland, I'm Sean Kipe, and this is Drowning Creek. So in 1996, you know, Atlanta had the Olympics here, right? During the 1996 Summer Olympics, Lake Lanier hosted the rowing, canoe, and kayak events. The person told us that Martin Wilkie told the girl, or the girl said that where they had the bleachers set up for viewing, across from the bleachers, there is a cove. The toolbox was put in that cove across from the bleachers. Of course, we hear stuff all the time. Now we have Google, so my husband's looking, we find the row club. We were able to locate bleachers, and directly across from it is definitely a cove. I think part of the reason Erica kept this information to herself for as long as she did was because she just didn't know if it was real or not. But also, I think she was wondering if anyone even cared enough anymore to go looking. I talked with my producer, Jason, about what I'd learned, and we discussed our options, and ultimately what to do with this lead. Have we asked them to do a dive? Could we get on a boat with them, or what's the deal? No one's ever been out there. I think that they're not too keen on this lead. For whatever reason, they just feel like they have more urgent leads. I think over time, there's just been so many leads about Lake Lanier, and they've all come up empty, that they're almost feeling like maybe that's not what happened. But, you know, how do you not, how do we not go and see if this is real? What do we do with this information? The bad news is Lake Lanier is massive. Good news is actually having a landmark like the Olympic Park, that should be really easy for us to find. We're going to need somebody to dive, because, I mean, the police aren't going to use their dive team for this, apparently. I think we should just find someone and, and figure it out. We need to do it ourselves. That's what we need to do. I went back to Erica to get as much information about this lead as I could. I wanted to know who the man was that gave her this tip through Facebook. The guy that told me this? I want to say it's a Hispanic name. So I'm going to go to my messages and find it. At least try to. Okay, so this guy isn't my friend anymore, but I have a phone number for him. Hi, this is Felipe. F-E-L-I-P-E. I don't know his last name, so I have to find him. That's the thing right now. He gave me a phone number back then of 770-870-8205. I know he had a daughter. I mean, I remember he looked, you know, like a pretty legit guy from when I researched him on Facebook. I asked for anything else she could remember about him. He lived in Georgia. I believe he had a daughter. I'm not sure if it was married. Of course, he had dark hair. He wasn't real thin. He had a little meat in his face. Erica eventually came up with a last name for Felipe that she was pretty sure was right, as the account he used to contact her with no longer existed. I tried the phone number he had left, and it belonged to someone else now. I looked for Felipe for days. But honestly, have you ever tried searching for someone with a common Hispanic name online? It's really difficult. I found dozens of Felipe's and called every number with no luck. So with a dead end there, who was the woman that dated Martin Wilkie, where this lead originated from? Do you remember her name by chance? I have no recollection of that name right now. Another bust. But there was one person of interest in this case that I'd been tracking for a while now. A man whose name we've heard many times. A man we've heard was present the last time I saw him. The man whose name I've heard is Martin Wilkie. I wanted to ask him about all I've heard so far and see if he could, or would, tell me anything about the cove on Lake Lanier. If there's one person who could elaborate on this information, it's Martin Wilkie. Another long shot, I know, but hey, what the hell, right? It doesn't hurt to ask. I finally reached him on the phone, and it kind of went better than I thought it would. The only thing I can tell you is I don't. I don't. I don't wish to talk to anyone about it. told everybody that matters including law enforcement that I had nothing to do with any of that and I don't want to get back into it again because I don't know anything but thank you very much well and I just wanted to say that I'm not all right after running up against brick walls and dead ends trying to speak with the people this new information came from my team and I decided to give it a go ourselves we had to at least try but only if Erica supported the idea you know what I would love for you to because I've sat on the information for a long time maybe it wasn't the best idea I just I don't feel like I have that close connection with Gwinnett County anymore and that was all the confirmation I needed Jason and I checked maps and planned out our search the best we could with the information we had you know and just looking at this map you know I'm looking there's the Lake Lanier Olympic Park just like Erica told me there are the bleachers you can see these massive concrete bleachers and directly across are two coves one one big cove and one kind of smaller one yeah I see I have google maps up now and I'm looking at it too on the side where this cove is there's not really a lot there there's a pretty big wooded area after looking at maps we'd now seen for ourselves that the cove is there just as Erica had described but searching this area isn't as easy as it sounds Lake Lanier is no joke it can be nearly impossible to see underwater and there's decades worth of junk and debris on the lake floor which makes it not only difficult to search but also really dangerous I've heard stories of you know bank safes to cars to I mean this is not necessarily a lake that you can just kind of walk around on the bottom we have to get somebody that's got sonar equipment because I don't think with all the rain that we've had I don't think you're going to see anything in that water the biggest challenge we would likely face is the visibility which gives way to other dangers in the water when Lake Lanier was made in the 1950s they actually flooded an entire town in the surrounding farmland there are still houses and storefronts completely intact at the bottom of the lake so I reached out to a few boat rental companies and found a few divers who could help us out hey what's up so I got a boat and I made contact with some guys who are divers they have a YouTube channel here in Georgia they've had success in finding cars and they've unfortunately found human remains in lakes and stuff all across the country so they've agreed to help us out and get out on the lake with us they've got cold water dive gear they've got sonar they've got underwater cameras they've got the whole works and they had actually heard about Justin Gaines's case wow so now it was official we had divers we had a boat and we would search the cove for any sign of Justin Gaines and just saying that out loud brought to the surface a few emotions I hadn't really expected the whole idea of you know we're talking about this and you get caught up in the planning of it and in the lead and the story of Justin in this case and and it like makes you stop for a minute and think what if we do find him I mean are we ready for that I don't really know how I feel but I think it is the right thing for us to do we've got to kind of drop our fear of all this stuff in the meantime and we've got to do what's right you know yeah like how do we not go for it I'm actually glad we're doing this you know I think the fact that this comes from Erica and it really matters to the family and just all of that makes to me whatever anyone thinks of this as a credible lead or not I just think when something comes to the family like that you've got to do it no matter what it is if we fail we fail but we've at least given them peace of mind that this is something that they could cross off their list and and we've got to hold out hope for it was now mid-December in the serene fall colors that slowly wilted and faded to shades of brown and gray the morning we arrived at Lake Lanier was the coldest day of the year so far and a thick heavy fog rolled across the surface of the water providing an eerie backdrop for an already solemn occasion my team and I had rented a boat hired a captain and set out from the Port Royal Marina and our camera operator Jan we began the freezing 30-minute boat ride to the Cove Erica understandably chose not to be present within minutes after setting out our hands and faces were already numb from the cold we were meeting up with divers Adam Brown and Jeremy sides two men who've made a living finding things and people lost to the water I guess the most professional way to put it is we we run a non-profit that focuses on searching for missing people and cleaning up the waterways like removing um cars from the because we find lots of cars more than we do missing people so we remove the cars in the process and we document all of the all of our recoveries and all of our searches on a numerous social media channels and that's that's that's essentially how we fund it because we don't charge the family we don't charge anybody we do everything free charge it's just a place for somebody to feel like they're they haven't they're not they've lost all hope you know because some there's I get lots of messages every day that people you know like the police aren't doing anything they don't care or they've used up all the resources and they've given up Jeremy and Adam use their YouTube channels Adam Brown Adventures and exploring with nug to fund their searches and they've paid off you know I've I found three people on my own and two teenagers that went missing for 20 years and they ended up showing up they was in their car in a river in town that they went missing in and uh water's 10 foot deep most of the cases we Target are people missing in vehicles because it's so much easier to find a car underwater the majority of missing person cases are they don't involve vehicles so they don't get solved as easy since you know we have a Target we have something to look for like this one you know there's a box we have something we can look for if it was just a body it's so much more difficult I'd fill Jeremy and Adam in on what it was we were doing email and over a few phone calls and they were already familiar with Justin's case it's still really fresh like they you'll still hear stories all around about you know the kid of witnessing from Wild Hills yeah I gave them the few additional details I had and as we had thought our biggest issue would be the visibility this is like two inch visibility you might be able to see like this close wow we see anything we'll dive it and hopefully just find it be able to feel it we won't be able to see anything right it's basically going to be a lot of searching and it will search him but we don't know until we get out here and start looking as you guys get out here you're just actually you're just going to be cruising back Jeremy Adam and myself began canvassing the area in and around the Cove using sonar to see if any anomalies stood out particularly anything that resembled a large toolbox the Cove we're focusing on sits directly across the lake from the large concrete bleachers built for the Olympic spectators and is secluded with tree cover on three sides honestly it's as good a place as any to hide evidence the average depth of Lake Lanier is about 60 feet with the deepest point being 160 feet at the Buford Dam but from the story I've heard Justin's body was moved from the lake when the level dropped several feet because it became visible so I knew if that story were true he would have had to have been near the shoreline so that's where we concentrated our search first yeah the footage of the scanning is going to be a lot of repetitive looking right so until we actually see a signal this is uh the right side and left side on this view so that's just shooting out like you're looking down straight above it yeah and this one's a side view so if there was like you know a car sitting here you'd see the side view of a car we also have the live scan which is this which uh you can see a live image you can like turn it and get like kind of a 3D looking shape of what you look if you see something so we were going to run that over some some of these things so this is the bottom that we're looking at out to the left and it's pretty just flat sand it's not really like once you see something it'll stand out after several hours spent in the freezing cold searching the murky waters gliding lazily across the surface in a grid-like pattern Adam alerts us that he's spotted something on the sonar near the mouth of the Cove you're seeing something that looks square a few different anomalies you've seen we're trying to believe if we've out the uh if it's a block for a dock and stuff like that there's a few that aren't by the dock so we're kind of seeing we're going to run the live scan and try to get a better image of it we'll probably try with the magnet even though I'm if if I was to guess I would say it's going to be an aluminum box but if we got lucky at steel we just hit it with a magnet and then we just follow the rope down to it and see what it is yeah we have an anchor on here too we could just get the anchor and sit next to it yeah we can we can bounce the anchor and you can feel it in the rope and we'll just drop the anchor right there they won't have a guide rope take us right to it but I'll just dive down and see what it is it feels like a box I'll probably just tie the rope to it go from there you couldn't tell what the shape was exactly and the water was cloudy from recent heavy rains, so you could see nothing from the surface. Jeremy volunteered to put on his dive gear and take a closer look. The water was cold, and where we sat in the cove was hidden from the sun by the trees. By now, the fog had burned off, but a steady breeze was blowing, and the cold was biting at our fingers and faces again. Jeremy stripped down to his underwear and slipped into his thick cold water dive suit. After several checks to make sure the equipment was working, including a comms unit so we could communicate with him while he was underwater, he slipped into the lake. Soon after, his head sank beneath the surface, and he was gone. Everything was quiet, but the hum of the trolling motors keeping the boats in place, and the sound of a few bubbles boiling to the surface, the water was calm and still. And it was at this very moment that it hit us all that we could be mere minutes away from finding Justin Gaines. A somber feeling washed over us, but it seemed to leave as quickly as it came, because after several minutes, we'd lost contact with Jeremy. Do you read me? Do you read me? Copy. After several minutes of not being able to communicate with Jeremy while he was underwater, investigating the anomaly detected with sonar, the group became increasingly concerned. Even in reasonably shallow water, Lake Lanier has any number of obstacles on the bottom to get snagged on and held down, like tree branches and discarded metal objects. Are you seeing anything down there? Over. Adam attempted to get an update from Jeremy to see if he'd found anything of interest underwater. Can you hear me? Over. While we looked for any signs of movement from the surface, Adam tried repeatedly to make contact. Each time, there was no response. Do you read me? We all waited for any kind of response from Jeremy. And again, nothing. Can you hear me? Over. We waited and waited. Now becoming concerned for Jeremy's safety. Do you read me? Copy. Suddenly, Jeremy emerges from the water. Zero visibility. Cold. Found the target. Just laying there, next to a tree stump. Thankfully, Jeremy was fine. It was the comms unit that had malfunctioned. The tension that was building minutes before lifted. And we waited to hear what he'd found below the surface. A flood of thoughts rushed over me. Could this really be the moment, after 16 years, that Justin Gaines was found? If so, could forensic testing be done to determine exactly what happened to him and lead us to his killer? There was a lot riding on what we were about to hear. The second I deflated and went down, Uh, it was just brown. You could see the sun, so it was, it was, it wasn't pitch black. But, uh, once I started dropping down, it was just darker and darker. I could still see the sunlight, but it was just like a dark brown. Could literally couldn't see my hand in front of my face. I found the anchor and then, uh, I just, I just started going around in a circle. I'll hold onto the anchor. And then eventually I kicked that target with my foot and I swam over to it and figured out it was a plastic barrel just by feeling on it. It was flimsy. The, the top was open. An empty plastic barrel. Sadly, another dead end. The whole group was disappointed because this was the only foreign object of interest we really saw after hours of searching. The lake floor in this area was surprisingly clean. I suddenly have the same feeling that I imagine investigators like Carl Sims and Mike Rising must have had for years after coming up with no results from their searches. Feeling like you could be. So close only to be disappointed again and again, but also a pretty profound thought hit me at this very moment to something that would make me question what I was even doing at this lake in the first place. You know, it's like a part of you wants to find Justin and. Find what we came for, you know, and the other part of you is, you know, if he, if he actually did find him down the, you know what I mean? Like, do you really want to be witness to that? I mean, it's just, God, it's such a big lake. I mean, you could, you could do this forever. And I mean, it really is a needle in a haystack. It is a needle in a very large haystack and with near zero visibility underwater. The odds were stacked even more against us as we discussed Jeremy and Adam offered to come back out and do another search when the conditions were better and offer. We enthusiastically took them up on. We could, we could spend days out here doing that. Yeah. I mean, I I'm all for it. Not necessarily today just because it's, it's so horrible. Yeah. Our search was done for now and I had to give Erica the news that we didn't find Justin. If that's good news or not, I don't know. I want to thank you. You've gave me chills and for you, like all this and go into this and what you're doing, that's amazing. I'm going to cry. I thank you so much. I, oh my gosh. I mean, I don't expect anything ever, you know, but just to know that you're out there and putting that much effort into, you know, digging really deep again. And you know, I appreciate it. I think not finding Justin was both a relief and a disappointment for her. It's this mixed bag of emotions that she's carried with her for almost two decades. But I know she's just thankful to know that someone still cares. I feel better that I know someone's actually went out there and look. So, I mean, that makes me feel better, but I mean, I would never say no, but I think, you know, it's worth it. I wish I could take another thing when it's clear or warmer. I understand the water's freezing right now. Maybe there is something to the stories and leads pointing to Lake Lanier. Maybe not. But just because we came up empty handed this time doesn't mean I'm at all dissuaded. If anything, I'm more determined than ever to find the truth of what happened to Justin Gaines. And I feel like each new person I come in contact with leads me a little closer to that truth. I have a really good girlfriend of mine. The father of her child got brought in for questioning over this, and he failed his lie detector test. He was worried sick that something was going to happen to him. She kept asking him, well, what did you do? Tell me, what did you do? Did you have something to do with this? And he would never tell her. I know he did fail his lie detector test, asking about if he had anything to do with Justin's death. And he failed. And that's not public knowledge. Who'd you hear that from? His baby mama. Are you able to tell me his name? Leon. Drowning Creek is an original production of Waveland. I wrote and created the series and the original score. Executive producer is Jason Hoke. Associate producer is Leo Culp. Sound engineering by Shane Freeman. Special thanks to Erica Wilson and her family. If you have any leads on this case, please contact me at info at SeanKype.com. And if you love the series, please leave a review and tell your friends. Follow Waveland on Instagram at Waveland Media for more on this series and upcoming new shows. And you can also find me on social media at SeanKypeOfficial or at SeanKype.com. As always, thanks for listening. you