LAKE OCONEE, Ga. — Dive teams will search Lake Oconee on Saturday, nearly three weeks after Atlanta teacher Gary Jones and his fiancée disappeared while boating.
The divers are highly trained and experienced with diving in murky, obstacle-studded water. The Emergency Dive Response Team, a nonprofit based at Lake Lanier, has brought in volunteer divers to search areas thick with submerged timber.
“Now it’s gonna be zero visibility,” Buck Buchanan, the owner of Dive911 in Crystal River, Fla., told Channel 2′s Bryan Mims.
[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]
Search teams have crisscrossed the area with sonar equipment, which uses sound waves to detect objects in the water. Forensic search dogs, trained to smell human remains in water, have also responded to scents in the area.
“So over the last couple of weeks, these guys have identified targets,” Buchanan said. “We’ve ruled them out using technology, but now we’re gonna go down and we’re gonna physically touch these areas and say that’s definitely not it.”
In essence, he said, the divers will rule out search areas.
“And hopefully, we’re wrong,” he said. “Hopefully, what we’re diving on is not a tree or a stump or a rock.”
RELATED STORIES:
- ‘Wind is really playing a factor’ in search for missing teacher on Lake Oconee
- Sheriff says despite speculation, he believes missing teacher is still in Lake Oconee
- Lake Oconee search: Channel 2 gets exclusive look at equipment being used to find missing teacher
- Wallet, credit cards found in boat of teacher who vanished on Lake Oconee
He said he and his fellow divers are highly trained in searching for human remains and evidence in treacherous areas.
“These are divers we’ve worked with before,” Buchanan said. “We know these divers and we bring them in because they have special skill sets to do this.”
Among the divers is Ryan Sauter of Dahlonega, a former diver with the Hall County Sheriff’s Office.
“From what we’ve been briefed on, you’ve got timber, and with timber comes fishing string, barbed wire, limbs,” he said. “There’s a lot of chances to get hung up on the bottom. That’s why we have a trained team.”
Jones disappeared on the lake on Feb. 8. He was in a small plastic fishing boat with his fiancée, Joycelyn Wilson. Her body was pulled from the water the next day.
The divers are expected to launch at around 10 a.m. Saturday. Several forensic search dogs will also be on the lake Saturday.
[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
©2025 Cox Media Group
