How One Amateur Group Did What Law Enforcement Couldn't—Solve Dozens of Cold Cases

Late one night in the fall of 1998, Samantha Hopper called her mother to ask if she'd watch Samantha's two young daughters, 3-year-old Dezarae and 22-month-old Courtney. Her mom, Debbie Mahan, said she could handle only one of the girls, so Hopper drove the short distance to Mahan's Russellville, Arkansas, house and dropped off Dezarae. Hopper, who was 19 years old and eight months pregnant at the time, then left in her Ford Tempo with her other daughter, ostensibly to visit a new boyfriend in Tennessee. She and Courtney were never seen again.

As the years passed, Debbie Mahan filed so many missing-persons reports that she ran out of photos picturing her daughter. The local sheriff's office treated the case as a potentially criminal one but soon exhausted all good leads. Samantha and Courtney, it seemed, had disappeared without a trace. That was a particularly bitter pill for Dezarae Carpenter, who grew up wondering if her mother had abandoned her, perhaps to start a new life. She stayed in regular touch with the investigators assigned to the case, but it didn't take long before they had nothing new to report.

Then, in 2021, a friend alerted Carpenter to a Facebook page dedicated to Adventures With Purpose, a nascent search-and-rescue dive group that had amassed a large YouTube following. Its founder, Jared Leisek, took it upon himself to try to find her. He'd tried unsuccessfully to locate Hopper on his own the year before and made a short video depicting his attempts. Carpenter again contacted Erick Riggs, the sheriff's detective working her mom's case; this time she wanted to enlist the help of AWP. The team had already located several missing people—all still in their submerged vehicles. Resigned that the case might never be solved, the Pope County Sheriff's Office agreed to let the amateur divers investigate.

View in Browser  SHOP EXCLUSIVE SUBSCRIBE How One Amateur Group Did What Law Enforcement Couldn't—Solve Dozens of Cold Cases How One Amateur Group Did What Law Enforcement Couldn't—Solve Dozens of Cold Cases Late one night in the fall of 1998, Samantha Hopper called her mother to ask if she'd watch Samantha's two young daughters, 3-year-old Dezarae and 22-month-old Courtney. Her mom, Debbie Mahan, said she could handle only one of the girls, so Hopper drove the short distance to Mahan's Russellville, Arkansas, house and dropped off Dezarae. Hopper, who was 19 years old and eight months pregnant at the time, then left in her Ford Tempo with her other daughter, ostensibly to visit a new boyfriend in Tennessee. She and Courtney were never seen again. As the years passed, Debbie Mahan filed so many missing-persons reports that she ran out of photos picturing her daughter. The local sheriff's office treated the case as a potentially criminal one but soon exhausted all good leads. Samantha and Courtney, it seemed, had disappeared without a trace. That was a particularly bitter pill for Dezarae Carpenter, who grew up wondering if her mother had abandoned her, perhaps to start a new life. She stayed in regular touch with the investigators assigned to the case, but it didn't take long before they had nothing new to report. Then, in 2021, a friend alerted Carpenter to a Facebook page dedicated to Adventures With Purpose, a nascent search-and-rescue dive group that had amassed a large YouTube following. Its founder, Jared Leisek, took it upon himself to try to find her. He'd tried unsuccessfully to locate Hopper on his own the year before and made a short video depicting his attempts. Carpenter again contacted Erick Riggs, the sheriff's detective working her mom's case; this time she wanted to enlist the help of AWP. The team had already located several missing people—all still in their submerged vehicles. Resigned that the case might never be solved, the Pope County Sheriff's Office agreed to let the amateur divers investigate. Late one night in the fall of 1998, Samantha Hopper called her mother to ask if she'd watch Samantha's two young daughters, 3-year-old Dezarae and 22-month-old Courtney. Her mom, Debbie Mahan, said she could handle only one of the girls, so Hopper drove the short distance to Mahan's Russellville, Arkansas, house and dropped off Dezarae. Hopper, who was 19 years old and eight months pregnant at the time, then left in her Ford Tempo with her other daughter, ostensibly to visit a new boyfriend in Tennessee. She and Courtney were never seen again. As the years passed, Debbie Mahan filed so many missing-persons reports that she ran out of photos picturing her daughter. The local sheriff's office treated the case as a potentially criminal one but soon exhausted all good leads. Samantha and Courtney, it seemed, had disappeared without a trace. That was a particularly bitter pill for Dezarae Carpenter, who grew up wondering if her mother had abandoned her, perhaps to start a new life. She stayed in regular touch with the investigators assigned to the case, but it didn't take long before they had nothing new to report. Then, in 2021, a friend alerted Carpenter to a Facebook page dedicated to Adventures With Purpose, a nascent search-and-rescue dive group that had amassed a large YouTube following. Its founder, Jared Leisek, took it upon himself to try to find her. He'd tried unsuccessfully to locate Hopper on his own the year before and made a short video depicting his attempts. Carpenter again contacted Erick Riggs, the sheriff's detective working her mom's case; this time she wanted to enlist the help of AWP. The team had already located several missing people—all still in their submerged vehicles. Resigned that the case might never be solved, the Pope County Sheriff's Office agreed to let the amateur divers investigate. Read More Read More Scientists Might Have Discovered a Whole New Human Lineage A breakthrough finding opens up a world of ancestral possibilities. Read More Scientists Used Cement to Make a Damn Supercapacitor If it scales, it could accelerate our push toward renewable energy. Read More Tanks Were the Most Important Ground Weapons of WWII. These 5 Packed the Biggest Punch From the Blitzkrieg to the Eastern Front, tanks were vital tools of conquest—for good or evil. Read More Scientists Mapped the Grand Canyon of the Sea Right Down to the Centimeter A LiDAR-equipped ROV traversed the ocean floor of the Monterey Canyon, the largest and deepest submarine canyon in North America. Read More What We Have Here Is a New Way to Probe Dark Energy It may show us another side of the mysterious force permeating our universe. Read More Follow Us Unsubscribe | Privacy Notice | CA Notice at Collection Popular Mechanics is a publication of Hearst Magazines. ©2023 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This email was sent by Hearst Magazines, 300 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019-3779