Investigators believe the car and human remains are connected to a missing person case involving Roy Benn, a man who disappeared in 1967.
SARTELL, Minn. — Investigators in central Minnesota say human remains discovered inside a can sunk in the Mississippi River are likely connected to a man who disappeared nearly 60 years ago.
The sunken car was originally spotted on Sunday when a fisherman detected it on his sonar finder and reported it to authorities. The Stearns County Sheriff’s Office and Sartell police closed Riverside Avenue on Wednesday as a dive team located the vehicle and helped remove it from the river.
In a pair of press releases Thursday morning, Sartell police and the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office said the recovered vehicle was a Buick from the 1960s, adding that the vehicle appeared to have been underwater for decades and was intact but “severely deteriorated.”
The Buick was brought to the Sartell PD for processing by several departments, including the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA). During the operation, human remains were found inside the vehicle. They were sent to the Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office for testing and identification.
Investigators were able to access the Buick’s Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) and learned it was registered to Roy Benn, a man who disappeared from Benton County in 1967 and was the subject of an unsolved missing person case. Sheriff’s officials say they believe the human remains belong to Benn.
The case will now be turned over to the Benton County Sheriff’s Office, as that is the jurisdiction that was investigating Benn’s disappearance when the trail went cold.
