Probing the muddy bottoms of lakes, rivers, and the San Francisco Bay Area for bodies is highly technical, sometimes grueling, work. But a small group of East Bay forensic divers have formed a new nonprofit to do just that.
The organization, called California Recovery Divers, was founded earlier this year and launched its website this month. It provides a lifeline to distressed families whose loved ones have drowned and cannot be found.
“It’s such an obscure situation for families that they don’t really know where to go for help,” said Kevin Haugh, a 51-year-old Oakland tax attorney who founded the group.
Haugh, a former diving instructor, gained experience in this macabre field as a volunteer with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office Dive Team, an all-volunteer crew of underwater search and recovery experts who assist authorities in locating sunken bodies, including weapons and other items from Interest in missing persons cases and criminal investigations. The team has existed since the mid-20th century and is recognized as a leader in this specialized practice. It was involved in the massive but unsuccessful search for murder victim Laci Peterson in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2003 and has participated in dozens of searches since.
California Recovery Divers team member Megan Crabtree looks at data collected historically in the Brooklyn Basin off Alameda. The team is a group of trained volunteers who search for and recover missing persons in the waters of Northern California.
Carlos Avila González/The Chronicle
Haugh’s nonprofit organization is not affiliated with the County Team.
The magnitude of the need for water body restoration in Northern California is difficult to ascertain, but cases emerge and make headlines every year. A spokeswoman for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office said the county’s dive team orders about once a month — more frequently during the summer months.
There are dozens of county dive teams across the state — including those staffed by sworn deputies in Marin and Santa Clara counties — to help with underwater searches. But they don’t always find what they’re looking for. This is where Haugh can believe his organization can help – in particularly difficult drowning cases, when authorities have unsuccessfully exhausted their resources.
The idea of starting the non-profit organization followed a particularly emotional case in 2017 when the beloved owner of the Tomales Bay Oyster Co. drowned in Tomales Bay. After local authorities unsuccessfully ended their search, the man’s body was found floating on the water by friends who had continued to search the bay in boats and kayaks. One of them was Dave McMurdie, the former leader of the Alameda County Dive Team who is now a co-founder of California Recovery Divers.
David McMurdie holds the side scan sonar towfish device on the California Recovery Divers boat in the Brooklyn Basin off Alameda. The team is a group of trained volunteers who search for and recover missing persons in the waters of Northern California.
Carlos Avila González/The Chronicle
“It was an eye opener for me,” said McMurdie, who estimates he’s helped 30 to 35 successful body recoveries. “It gave me a deeper understanding that when resources run dry, there isn’t necessarily much support out there.
“We have this critical mass of knowledge and we are committed to sharing and helping.”
The new nonprofit consists of six people — Haugh and McMurdie, plus a retired general contractor, an attorney, a member of the US military and a technology product designer — all of whom have volunteered to join the Alameda County team.
In addition to providing emotional relief to families in need, a recovered body allows people to obtain a death certificate and settle the affairs of a deceased relative. Without one, families can find themselves in limbo: under California law, a missing person cannot be considered dead until seven years have elapsed.
California Recovery Divers team member Kevin Haugh holds scan data taken in the Brooklyn Basin off Alameda. The team is a group of trained volunteers who search for and recover missing persons in the waters of Northern California.
Carlos Avila González/The Chronicle
“If we have the opportunity to help grieving families as a charity, we would all feel good about it,” Haugh said.
The work is intense.
Depending on the body of water, searchers may be able to perform sonar scans in hopes of identifying targets to study underwater. But then a diver has to descend and start looking around this unfamiliar space – often in near-zero visibility or in the dark, in places fraught with danger. Salvage divers have cut their wetsuits on rusting barbed wire, tangled in tree roots, hiked into underwater culverts and brushed all manner of stray debris. A diver descends while tethered to a rope tender at the surface, and the two communicate through tugs on the line.
Haugh’s group joins a handful of niche organizations that conduct aquatic search and recovery operations in the western United States. Some are non-profit organizations that rely on donations; others are for-profit companies that charge flat rates.
A Wisconsin nonprofit called Bruce’s Legacy has conducted several successful body recoveries in Lake Tahoe, including one from 1,565 feet. Last fall, an Oregon company called Adventures With Purpose recovered the body of 16-year-old Kiely Rodni at a reservoir near Truckee – a search that had left authorities stumped for weeks.
The California Recovery Divers team consisting of David McMurdie (left) and Kevin Haugh hit the water in the Brooklyn Basin off Alameda. The team is a group of trained volunteers who search for and recover missing persons in the waters of Northern California.
Carlos Avila González/The Chronicle
In the first few months, California Recovery Divers has completed three successful operations in the greater Bay Area.
In January, Haugh’s crew recovered the remains of a 32-year-old angler who drowned weeks earlier while on a fishing trip in San Pablo Bay. In February, the group found the body of a 39-year-old kayaker who drowned in Tomales Bay. Then last month, the group assisted the Monterey County dive team in the search and recovery of the body of a 7-year-old boy at Moss Landing Harbor.
“They were very competent,” said Mike Darlington, commander of the dive team for the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office. “What we couldn’t do in three days, they did in about five hours in one morning.”
In each case, Haugh’s group proactively offered their services pro bono to local authorities or the family of the missing person. In the future, Haugh hopes to gain enough exposure that families will seek out his group directly.
The venture is funded in part by donations — it has raised about $8,000 from multiple individuals so far — but Haugh wants grants to help stabilize his group’s finances. It’s not yet clear what the group’s annual budget will be because it’s so new.
“We want to be as discreet as possible,” Haugh said. “Our team is not made up of people trying to self-promote. We just want to bring closure to the families.”
Reach Gregory Thomas: gthomas@sfchronicle.com
