US amateur search & recovery divers Adventures With Purpose (AWP) say they have now solved their 20th missing-person cold case – an 18-year-old mystery surrounding the disappearance of parcel-delivery worker Jimmy Amabile.
Amabile lived in Ridley Township, a suburb of Philadelphia. On the late afternoon of 4 December 2003 he had called the babysitter looking after his daughters to say that he had overslept and would be late picking them up. He had not been heard from again.
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As an insulin-dependent diabetic, if 38-year-old Amabile’s blood sugar ran low he ran the risk of becoming confused and losing his positional sense.
His family believed that if such diabetic shock had occurred he might have taken a wrong turn and driven his Ford Explorer SUV into Darby Creek, a tributary of the Delaware river that ran close to the babysitter’s home.
AWP volunteer divers respond to tip-offs and requests from families nationwide to search inland waters in what police consider cold cases. Amabile’s family had heard about the team and asked them to help.
Retracing the missing man’s route, the divers decided that a municipal marina on the creek seemed the most likely spot for a vehicle to run off the road, and through sonar scanning located an object at a depth of about 7m.
‘Most intense’
After diving the site on scuba, AWP buddy-pair Doug Bishop and Anthony Giampetro said they were confident that they had located the remains of Amabile, still buckled into the driver’s seat of his car.
They described the diving conditions as the “most intense” they had known, characterised by a powerful undertow, zero visibility and an abundance of large pieces of debris being carried by the flow in midwater.
Bishop and Giampetro brought up a Pennsylvania licence plate that Amabile’s brother Stephen, waiting at the surface, confirmed to be from the missing car.
The divers worked over two days with local police supporting them to recover the body, although its identity has yet to be officially confirmed pending a post mortem examination.
The marina had been redeveloped since 2003, and the divers had been shocked to find that in the process of building a new dock a large pile had been driven through the bonnet of Amabile’s SUV.
Tip-offs and requests
AWP was founded in 2019 by Oregon-based Sam Ginn and Jared Leisek, operating from a campervan. Through regular YouTube episodes recounting its adventures it has unexpectedly grown to become one of the most visible outlets for scuba diving.
With more than 2 million YouTube subscribers, AWP says it has received more than 200m views, providing a stream of donations that, with sales of its branded clothing, funds its activities.
The divers receive tip-offs and requests through YouTube and Facebook followers, and say they have found more than 100 lost vehicles as well as the missing persons.
AWP also appears to have inspired the formation of a number of other amateur dive-teams with a similar agenda in the USA.
The service is free, and the Amabile family were not charged for the divers’ services, although last year, after finding a man’s remains in an Iowa gravel pit, AWP threatened legal action for breach of contract when the award of a posted $100,000 reward was disputed. Find out more about the group by visiting Adventures With Purpose or the AWP YouTube Channel.
