COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Sumter Police Department is investigating after human remains were found in two separate incidents.
Tuesday morning, deputies with the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office responded to a location off of Boulevard Road, where a burned-out vehicle was found with a body inside.
Because of where the vehicle was discovered, the investigation was turned over to the Sumter Police Department.
The second case of human remains being found in Sumter happened when a local man specializing in underwater search and rescue made a discovery.
The discovery was a submerged car in the Rocky Bluff Swamp, just south of Crestwood High School.
Adam Brown is a Columbia resident and certified diver who specializes in independent underwater search and rescue. He and fellow diver Jason Souhrada discovered the silver BMW on Monday morning.
“This is a case that I’ve been working off and on for the past two years. There’s a lot of databases online which we follow, and we target missing people where their vehicles are also missing. Every time I (would) get some free time, because I live so close, I would go and check a few ponds,” Brown said.
The divers have a variety of high- and low-tech tools at their disposal.
“In this case (the area) was so small, that we just threw a big fishing magnet in to see if it would stick to anything. It immediately stuck on, and I just knew from experience that it was most likely a vehicle. So, I sent my drone down there, immediately saw that it was a silver car, and this morning we went out there, dove down and we were able to pull him out successfully,” Brown said.
On Thursday, authorities identified the deceased person in the submerged car as Tommy Brailey of Lee County. Brailey went missing after leaving the now-closed Brewers Bar and Grill on Wesmark Boulevard in 2017.
Brown said that sometimes, search and rescue involve a little luck. He hopes the discovery will bring closure to the person’s family.
“It’s just one of those things where it’s just the right time, right place. There (are) a lot of missing people out there and it’s never easy. But we do our best to search, spend as much time as we can, and try to bring them home," he said.
For more information on search and rescue services, visit Brown's nonprofit, Rapid Compression Collective Inc., at their website here.