Two American teens named Jeremy Bechtel and Erin Foster, both from Sparta, Tennessee, disappeared in April 2000. In 2021, Jeremy Sides, a volunteer civilian cold-case investigator and YouTuber, recovered their bodies in Foster’s car.
The Beginning
Erin Foster and Jeremy Bechtel were Sparta, Tennessee natives. On the evening of April 3, 2000, Bechtel called his father, Ronnie Bechtel. The same evening, Foster was seen by her brother Will.
After the evening of April 3, 2000, no one saw them alive, creating speculation and conjecture about their location, including fake reports of sightings. During 2005 and 2006, searches were conducted locally as well as in Pensacola, Florida, on rumors that Foster was living and working there.
Recovery
Jeremy Beau Sides is a civilian underwater diver from the United States who investigates missing persons and missing objects.
Jeremy Sides explored a lake near the area of the teenagers’ party.
Sides used sonar technology to find a car thirteen feet below the surface of the Calfkiller River, close to Highway 84, on November 30 evening.
On December 1, 2021, Sides returned to the vehicle he had seen in the river and went diving to film it. The license plate was identified as Foster’s Grand Am.
He contacted White County Sheriff Steve Page to report his discovery and confirm that it was Foster’s vehicle with two human remains lying inside. Foster and Bechtel’s bodies were later identified as those discovered in the vehicle after being lost for 21 years.
Police believe Foster lost control of her vehicle while travelling on Highway 84, which did not have a guardrail at the time.
He shared his findings in a 20-minute-long video titled “Exploring with Nug” on December 4, 2021. With almost 171,000 subscribers, the video reached Foster’s family and the police.
White County Sheriff Steve Page experienced a sense of defeat.
We went into wells, dug up areas, and utilized ground-penetrating equipment to seek for bodies,. The whole time, it was there under our noses… It’s heartbreaking to realize it was so simple, and that it was made that difficult by all the rumors and horror stories through the years. Steve Page declared.
Authorities were initially told that Foster had fled to Pensacola, Florida, p police followed up again in 2005 and 2006, but both times the leads went nowhere. Investigators also looked into claims that the two had been murd*ered and their bodies had been dumped in an abandoned White County well.
Speculation continued to run wild, spawning rumors that the pair died in a botched drug deal. For decades, the Bechtel and Foster families replayed those final confusing moments in spring 2000, while their neighbors continued to gossip and unknowingly drive investigators off course by circulating misinformation.
Ronnie Bechtel arrived at the address his son provided him on April 4, 2000. Jeremy and Erin, meanwhile, were nowhere to be found. Will, her brother, was thought to be one of the last persons to see her alive. On April 3, the two pals picked up Will from an arcade and drove him home before returning to the party. Then more than two decades after they had disappeared, Sides and his team solved the case.
Ultimately, the case of Jeremy Bechtel and Erin Foster remains unsolved. It’s unclear how the kids ended up driving into the river. And the imaginative resolution of this cold case serves as a reminder of how helpful amateur sleuths can be — while the depth of this tragedy will reverberate in perpetuity.
“It’s like losing him all over again,” said Ronnie Bechtel. “It just shattered my heart again. We always kind of thought through the years that something happened, but I just didn’t know what.”
