BONSALL, Calif. (CNS) - A 21-year-old man who went missing nearly a month ago was found dead Tuesday inside his car, which had veered off a rural roadway in Bonsall, crashed into a rain-swollen waterway and sunk below the surface of the water.
The family of Isaiah Lowe reported him missing Jan. 24, two days after they had last seen him, according to the San Diego County Sheriff's Office.
Though deputies searched for Lowe and entered information about the case into a missing-persons database accessed by law enforcement agencies across Southern California, he remained missing for more than three weeks, sheriff's Lt. Darrell McNeal said.
On Monday, Lowe's mother reported to deputies that she had gotten information from a GPS tracking device in his car, leading her to an area next to the San Luis Rey River, near the intersection of state Route 76 and Ramona Drive.
"A fence along the highway was damaged in the area where the GPS device stopped tracking Lowe's car," McNeal said. "Debris from what appeared to be Lowe's car was also located along the shoulder of state Route 76."
Sheriff's personnel, including a dive team, then went to the location of the crash and found Lowe's Chevrolet Camaro sunk in the San Luis Rey River.
"Due to recent rain, the car was fully submerged in the river," McNeal said. "Due to nightfall, recovery efforts were called off until the following day."
On Tuesday morning, crews pulled the car out of the water, finding Lowe's body inside. A ruling on the cause of his death was on hold pending completion of postmortem tests.
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