Kiely Rodni’s family acknowledges her death as authorities say remains are probably hers
Law enforcement is reasonably sure that the human remains found in a vehicle at the bottom of a California lake are those of missing teen Kiely Rodni, and her family said Sunday that they believe the 16-year-old has died.
“While we accept this sadness cast under death’s shadow, the rising sun shines light upon us, reminding us not to mourn our loss, but to celebrate Kiely’s spirit and the gift that we all received in knowing her,” her family wrote in an Instagram post. “Kiely will surely remain with us even though we will not get her back.”
A volunteer dive team claiming to have found Kiely’s body said it took less than an hour to discover her vehicle during Sunday’s search efforts.
The search and rescue team Adventures with Purpose detected a car with human remains inside about 14 feet underwater in Prosser Lake at 11:15 a.m. local time after placing two sonar boats in the water at 10:40 a.m., members Doug Bishop and Nick Rinn said during a Facebook live stream Monday.
Police had been searching to no avail for two weeks.
“After marking the vehicle with our magnet, Nick suited up in his dive gear and conducted the dive to formally identify and assess the vehicle,” Bishop said.
“Once we confirmed it was indeed Kiely’s vehicle, we immediately notified family, law enforcement, and dad and grandpa were on scene within minutes.”
Helicopter footage showed an SUV being pulled from Prosser Lake late Sunday evening.
Kiely Rodni
Authorities haven’t confirmed the identity of the human remains, which Bishop says were discovered about 55 feet offshore in the lake in Truckee. The confirmation will be made by a medical examiner “in the next few days, I’m sure,” Bishop said.
“We believe it is our missing person,” Nevada County Sheriff Shannan Moon said at a press conference Monday, according to SF Gate. “We have not been able to positively identify, but it’s more than likely where we are today. We wanted to make sure that the family had all that information first. The last thing we wanted was for them to learn information from outside our team.”
Adventures with Purpose boasts a massive YouTube following with nearly 2.5 million subscribers. The group’s videos detailing its investigations regularly garner hundreds of thousands of views.
The live stream took place less than 24 hours after Adventures with Purpose claimed it found a silver 2013 Honda CR-V with human remains inside while searching the lake. That car description matched the one that officials said belonged to Kiely when she went missing.
Kiely, 16, was reported missing on Aug. 6., according to the Placer County sheriff’s office. Authorities say the teen went a party near the Prosser Family Campground outside of Truckee with 200 to 300 juveniles and young adults in attendance. Truckee is about 30 miles southeast of Reno, Nev.
Nevada County Sheriff Captain Sam Brown said last week that the investigation by officials would be “more limited” following “astronomical” efforts that failed to yield much information.
“We are still looking for any clues, videos, tips, any information to help us to put pieces together and help us to direct where we’re going and how we’re going to continue to do a search,” Brown said on Aug. 15. “We are moving into a more limited but continuous search and rescue effort.”
Her family, meanwhile, asked for privacy.
“Kindly excuse us as we retreat and dance privately to life’s song while we celebrate our daughter’s spirit and heal our souls,” the family said in their Instagram post.
