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John Hollenhorst ReportingBob Vanderbusse, Chief Deputy, Uintah County: "Hopefully we'll be able to determine, one, if it's human, and secondly, if the DNA matchers are victim, Rhonda Karren."
There's a new theory in the case of a missing woman from Eastern Utah who may be buried deep underground. Two weeks ago we brought you exclusive reports on efforts to drill deep for the body of Rhonda Karren.
Detectives are now exploring the possibility her body was dissolved by acid 19 years ago after she was dumped in an abandoned well.
The search for answers in this old, cold case came to Salt Lake City today. So far the results are not encouraging, but detectives hope lab experts can tell them just what it is they drilled out of the ground two weeks ago.
Eartly this month a drilling company began probing deep into an abandoned water well. It was filled in with dirt almost two decades ago. Detectives think it may be the final resting place of Rhonda Karren.
She disappeared from her home near Vernal in 1987. The drill found no obvious evidence of a human body, but when it reached about 65 feet down, a strange smell came up.
Bob Vanderbusse, Chief Deputy, Uintah County: "Oh, there was at least a half dozen people or more that smelled that chemical smell."
Detective Bob Vanderbusse has an armload of possible evidence drilled from the well. He hopes laboratories can identify small particles and objects as body parts.
One mystery is a substance that flouresced, or glowed, under laser light, a possible signal of bone material.
Bob Vanderbusse: "And it was just a white pasty substance, and it had the chemical odor to it. We don't know what it was. I don't understand why there'd be a chemical odor that deep in the ground."
Last week a relative of the missing woman recalled seeing a drum of chemicals at the house she owned with her estranged husband.
Bob Vanderbusse: "And then, after she was reported missing, they noticed that the container was gone. It's a possibility that was dumped in the hole after her."
He speculates the killer poured in the chemicals, which destroyed the body over the last 19 years.
Bob Vanderbusse: "Basically ate it away, turned it into mush."
So far the pasty substance has not been analyzed. An expert here did analyze some small, hard fragments and concluded they were not bone.
So far there seems to be more frustration than proof, but detectives haven't given up and they haven't ruled out more drilling.
