Law&Crime Sidebar - Dive Team Who Found Kiely Rodni Join Police Searching for Missing 22-Year-Old

Episode Date: August 31, 2022

Jesse Weber sits down with Doug Bishop from Adventures With Purpose, the dive team searching for missing 22 year old Jolissa Fuentes.GUESTS:Doug Bishop, Founder of "Adventures With Purpose": www.youtube.com/c/AdventureswithPurpose/featuredLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. I get a chance to sit down and speak with one of the members of the Search and Recovery dive team currently looking for missing 22-year-old Jolissa Fuentes. Welcome to Sidebar presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. There is a chilling story that is happening right now in California that we want to talk about, and I'm talking, of course, about the disappearance of 22-year-old Jolissa Fuentes. I want to go through the timeline a little bit.

So on August 6, Fuentes was hanging out with family, and she reportedly got into a fight with a friend, then she went home to get some things, and then traveled to a local convenience store. You can actually see this on surveillance footage, and this is believed to be the last time that she was seen, and getting into and driving away in her 2011 silver Hyundai Saddam. Now, Selma Police Chief Rudy Alcaraz announced, quote, to this point, there is nothing overtly that leads us to believe that a criminal act has occurred. However, Ms. Fuentes has been gone a long time, and this is not normal behavior for Ms. Fuentes. So we are treating this as a criminal matter.

He goes on to say, quote, we were able to determine that Ms. Fuentes' phone traversed through the city of Sanger and up into the avocado lake and pine flat area, which is an area, apparently Fuentes. had been to before. Well, now the search and recovery dive team Adventures with Purpose is on the case. Now, this is a group that actually recovered the body of missing 16-year-old Kylie Rodney last week. Adventures with Purpose found her inside of an upside-down vehicle that was submerged in 14 feet of water in Prosser Creek Reserve Reservoir, I should say, out in California. They've been doing incredible work. Our job is to be here to find the where. confirm i see the vehicle and the license plate we have just found time this vehicle over and that leads

me to what i want to do right now i am thankfully and luckily joined by doug bishop from adventures with purpose sir thank you so much for coming on the sidebar likewise thank you for having me i will just say you know off the top you're doing tremendous work and i think it's an incredible service that you're doing so the more that we can actually amplify this and and allow people to know the work that you do i think that's great and so just the way to start off just want to thank you very much You're very welcome. You know, all the support that we get, including you guys covering us, you know, makes it possible for what it is that we do. And I want to ask how you got involved in the Fuentes case.

I mean, did police contact you or did you contact police and say we might be able to help here? You know, their family is absolutely incredible. You know, the fight that they have is one like no other, no other that I have experienced in working cases. So them, including, you know, the police department, Nevada County, not about, not November. I'm sorry, Fresno County Sheriff's Office, you know, we're all, we were all in communication with them as well. This is a tough case. Anytime we have anyone that disappears, let alone a 22-year-old young woman vanishes without a trace, her and her vehicle. It's very disturbing.

You know, we have quite the following. And, you know, our supporters, you know, especially with the headlines from Kylie's case last week, you know, I was very outspoken about Jalissa while working that case as well. So, you know, we were in direct communication with family and the local authorities. there every step of the way during what we were doing. And just to understand before you even get to Jalissa's case, have you, how long has Adventures with Purpose been around? How long have you been working on these kinds of cases? You know, you look at your YouTube page.

You have over for 2.2 million subscribers. Walk us through a little bit of the history of Adventures with Purpose. Yeah. So Adventures with Purpose, you know, we started as an environmental cleanup organization with our founder, Jared Lysik, focusing his diving efforts on, you know, cleaning up waterways with trash and so forth. This quickly turned into focusing on removing vehicles from underwater. Those vehicles quickly turned into human remains, turning up inside of them.

And while filming this, we amassed a wonderful support group all around the world who watches what we do, supports what we do. And for the last two and a half years, we've been primarily focused on missing persons cases, particularly those involving a vehicle. Have you ever gotten any pushback from police or law enforcement saying, hey, this is our jurisdiction? this is our job you're not supposed to get involved in the very beginning uh you know yes uh in a sense but nowadays absolutely not it's it's the quite opposite you know if there if there's water related to a case and you know we you know we're called on and you know are we have uh become you know somewhat of experts in what it is that we do it's a unique skill set that we provide law enforcement agencies are really, really welcoming to us. We get requests every day on cases

from family and law enforcement. And everybody understands the resource that we are to them. And they're very thankful for what it is that we bring to the table. And speaking, what you bring to the table, I mean, are there certain techniques that Adventures with Purpose has that maybe local law enforcement doesn't have? Maybe it doesn't have the capabilities that you have. Are there certain techniques that you use that other agencies don't? Absolutely. You know, it comes down to quite a few different things, and it's not a knock on law enforcement. This is quite a few things. Like I said, you know, it's red tape, lack of resources in some cases, and also the knowledge

that we bring with how to manipulate the sonar, particularly to find a vehicle. We do this every day. Law enforcement agencies as a whole, you know, they may do it once, twice, three times a year. So the knowledge that we've been able to amass, particularly by focusing on discovering vehicles under water is extremely rare, and there's no school for it. Can you walk us through what the sonar does? So how does it work? You go into the water, you use this sonar device. How does it detect? Does it just detect vehicles? Does it detect people? How does it work? Yeah, it can detect people. It can detect, you know,

everything pretty much, you know, other than very small objects, say like a cell phone or, you know, but other than that, we can detect almost anything underwater. And what we're doing is we're using a down imaging, a side scan, and a live scope sonar. These are three. systems that we will essentially put together in order to manipulate the image of what it is we're trying to find underwater. And then secondly, we're divers. So when we do find something that is of interest to us that we think may be a vehicle, for instance, we're able to dive on those and rule them out. So you see the sonar, you see it's some sort of object, then you dive to check it out. Let's talk about what's happening with Jolissa Fuentes. If you can, what is the status right now

with your search efforts? We came in. We worked very closely with the family. for several days to rule out waterways within the target area of what the Fresno County Sheriff's Office of Selma PD thought her cell phone last pinged in. This region out on the slopes over there in the county, it's a very vast region. However, there's several bodies of water that were in this region. And the family was extremely concerned about these waterways. We know, as you described, she left a convenience store early hours of the morning that was the last physical sighting of her ever her or her vehicle her phone then continued to ping up into this mountain area where there are lakes and we came in i cleared those bodies of water and now they're able to take what we've done and now they're focusing on 100 this is a criminal act something has happened somebody has done something to her somebody has taken her we are really focusing on more of the second trafficking scenario in this case, you know, to Alyssa's family really wants answers. And the more that we're able to cover this and put her word out there and hang up flyers and have her

picture seen, you know, the more likelihood of her being found or someone that out there knows something coming forward. The fact that it has been officially confirmed to be a criminal matter now, does that affect the way you do the search? So we've, we've completed our search with these waterways. You know, we focus on water. We were able to rule these bodies of water out so that there's no more speculation. There's no more, hey, we now know something has happened. You know, this young, we're talking about a beautiful 22-year-old, responsible, intelligent young woman who just vanished without a trace. You know, we're not talking about any red flags within her life and her circle. You know, nothing adds up into this other than somebody has

done something, somebody has her, and, you know, they need to release her or somebody needs to come forward. I hate to ask this. I hate to ask it, but this is something I have to ask. Obviously, if you had a fully formed body, it would be easy to detect. If there is a situation where somebody's body was mutilated or decomposed in a way, and would your search effort still be able to find someone in that kind of condition? Yes, and we have done so before. However, the intel that we need in order to conduct a search like that has to be highly accurate, you know, looking, searching for something along the lines of what you just described is a whole other level of searching and discovery. So, you know, without an accurate location for us to be in there

searching on that level, you know, we wouldn't be able to do much without some really good intel, but it's possible because we've done it before. So just to confirm this avocado lake area, this pine flat area. You search the waters. There's no indication. Jalissa's in there. Are you going to stay up, you're going to stay a part of this investigation? Let's say it takes it to another area. Are you going to still be a part of the investigation if water is concerned or is there a certain extent you said, hey, we're going to leave it to law enforcement or are you going to still be a part of this? Yeah, we're, we're completely a part of this every step of the way. You know, if we're needed, we're there for Jalissa's family. I can tell you again that, you know,

her family, they want answers. And her family has a fight in them that I have never seen before. They are forced to be reckoned with. And they're going to find answers. They're going to find Jalissa. And my heart goes out to them. And I'm in a way glad that I did not find them because I didn't want to take hope from them. This is a really fresh case. So me being able to come in and rule out those waterways right away in the main target area where her cell phone last thing, took the case in a whole new direction and still leaves hope on the table. So, you know, where I come in, you know, a lot of times I feel like I'm the bad guy because I'm looking for worst case scenario. But in this instance, you know, it was a success because we were

able to rule those areas out and still the family has that hope that she's out there. And Doug, I don't mean to give away, you know, trade secrets here. But in terms of how you were able to actually search the area and confirm it, what was the process that you went through to make sure that there were no remains of Jolissa there? Yeah, so primarily we are focused on finding her vehicle. You know, her and her vehicle are missing. The missing link to this case is obviously Jalisa, but in any investigation where the vehicle had disappeared as well, the vehicle provides that next clue, that next lead, that

next avenue for investigators and searchers to continue to find Jalisa. You know, finding the car is going to be the next step in this, if not just finding Jalisa. searching avocado lake, searching Pine Flat Lake and Kings River. You know, we're looking for her vehicle primarily. I also want to just take a few, because we have a few minutes to just talk about this, and you might be limited in what you can say, but my understanding is there's another person that you're looking for as well. A 75-year-old Annette Adams.

She's also known as Annette Murado. She hasn't been seen in more than a year. Authorities think that she was driving a black 2020 Buick Enclave, has a California license plate, AP, 8P, NV-871. Can you tell us anything about what the search efforts are there for Ms. Adams? Yes. So this case is pretty complex. We have a cell phone signal that last pinged in the area of Point Arena right on Highway 1 on the coast. There's some speculation that this may have been an accident. Her vehicle is here somewhere near the coastline. We are in the process of organizing the resources that we can utilize in order to safely get into this cliff area here that's very aggressive very deadly that you know to this point no other agency has no

other agency will do this search in this area it's very deadly you know we're not talking about a rescue we're talking about a recovery so the risk matrix is involved with agencies that do this they're not going to violate those matrices when it's a recovery effort. So we're in the process of organizing, you know, a larger vessel to get out there safely here really soon so that we can conduct our search and our dive efforts there to rule that area out. And we think we have it narrowed down pretty well. Is that 100% that she's there? Absolutely not. You know, her cell phone could have been ditched in this location and something else could have happened. But that's where we come in. We're able to come in,

in and we're able to rule these waterways out so that investigators and agencies can say, all right, there's no more speculation. We don't think, we don't think that her car went off this cliff. We can now focus on all of our efforts and resources into a criminal investigation and find out what really what happened to Ms. Adams. And Doug, as we talk about this, I am curious, what are some of the difficulties that you've had in terms of going into these bodies of water and trying to recover evidence or trying to recover vehicles or bodies? I mean, you mentioned it a little bit in terms of dangerous areas, what have been some of the challenges that you've seen in searching these areas?

You know, every dive that we do is challenging because we're in adverse conditions. We're not in pretty water. We're in extremely low visibility. It's rare that we have visibility. You know, we're talking rough currents, you know, of places that no one else has searched. And we're also talking about, you know, places that I can't say nobody else has searched because majority of the people that we find are in areas other agencies have searched. But these are places that other.

areas, other divers per se would not dive. You know, they're pretty challenging. You know, when you're dealing with currents and low visibility and, you know, you have all types of obstacles, you have trees and everything to get hung up on, it's pretty dangerous, you know, but we're confident in pushing limits in order to provide answers for families. And I think that's really, if we're going to end with anything, that's really what you guys do so well is you provide answers to families and you're providing a terrific service.

So I really want to thank you for your efforts. And I can imagine Jolissa's family cannot thank you enough for all the work that you've been doing. And as you said, you're providing them hope because you didn't want to give them an answer at this point as to what we're. But you can at least rule out those waterways. And hopefully Jolissa will be recovered safely. And, you know, this will have a positive ending, although these are just such sad stories. And, you know, our hearts and prayers are with that family. But, Doug, thank you so much for taking the time.

We really appreciate it. We really appreciate you taking the time, you know, to share Jilissa's story. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's important to. And because, you know, sometimes media, they get picked up with a lot of different stories. Some things get put under the rug. I think it's important to amplify this story, particularly since she's missing. And hopefully this may help in one way or another.

Doug Bishop, thank you so much. Thank you. And everyone out there, thanks for joining us here on Sidebar. You can subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. Sidebar is produced by Sam Goldberg, YouTube manager Robert Zoki, Alyssa Fisher as our booking producer and video editor, Logan Harris. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.