For nearly a decade, Tony Luzio's car sat just below the surface of a small Delaware County pond, sinking into the muck, waiting to be found.
It probably would have stayed there if not for the tenacity of investigators and an Illinois couple who searched the county, pond by pond, over the past year.
More than 250 bodies of water later, in a retention pond near the northwestern corner of E. Orange and Old State roads, they found the 2004 Honda Civic that Anthony "Tony" Luzio Jr. was driving the night he was last seen in July 2005.
A body inside the car is believed to be Luzio's: Clothing matched what he was last seen wearing and his driver's license was inside the car.
If the body is Luzio's, Delaware County's only open missing-persons case will be closed.
"This has never been a cold case," Sheriff Russell Martin said last night. "Maybe a lukewarm case, but never cold."
Luzio, 25, of Powell, disappeared on July 4, 2005, after leaving a party in Delaware County.
Since then, authorities have searched along roads and in bodies of water trying to find Luzio, who was the son of retired Columbus Police Sgt. Anthony Luzio Sr.
Investigators from a handful of agencies — including the sheriff's office and Powell Police Department — had enlisted the help of Dennis and Tammy Watters to search as many of the county's 1,000 bodies of water as they could.
The Watterses, who own Team Watters Sonar Search and Recovery in Moro, Ill., had come to Delaware County eight times over the past year to help search for Luzio. During that time, they became close with his parents, Carla and Anthony Sr.
The couple were looking for ponds that were deep enough to hide a car and could be driven into from a road. Using geographic-information-systems technology from the county auditor's office, they sought out bodies of water that back in 2005 had no obstacles — such as trees or a fence — around them, said Capt. Kevin Savage of the sheriff's office.
"We believe he drove off the roadway for whatever reason," Savage said. "When you never have a person or a vehicle show up, in our mind, that vehicle has to be hidden somewhere."
In the spring, investigators had focused on 300 bodies of water within a 3-mile radius of the Rutherford Road home where Luzio was last seen.
They moved the target for yesterday's search near Old State Road because a friend of Luzio's had lived close by.
"We were prepared to search every pond in Delaware County," Savage said.
Twelve ponds had been searched yesterday with the Watterses' sonar-equipped, radio-controlled boat before they found the car around 4:30 p.m. in the 13th one they targeted.
"We always knew it was a solvable case," Mr. Watters said.
Martin said he wouldn't speculate about what might have happened when Luzio went missing. It's been a 9 1/2-year investigation, he said, and there's no rush to judgment now.
"It would be premature and presumptuous on my part to speculate what happened that night," the sheriff said.
Martin sent one of his detectives to the Luzio home last night to be with them as Bureau of Criminal Investigation officers searched their son's car. The deputy there said the family wasn't ready to talk.
In May 2013, after the discovery of three long-missing women in Ariel Castro's home in Cleveland, that his family held out hope that "maybe someday we could have the same happy ending."
"You think, maybe there's a chance, a little bit of a chance," he said. "It's like he fell off the face of the Earth."
Last night, the Luzio family finally got their answer. But not their happy ending.
amanning@dispatch.com
@allymanning
Source : http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/10/21/Car-iof-missing-man-found-in-retention-pond.html
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