Friday afternoon local law enforcement agencies successfully recovered a pickup truck that was discovered submerged in the Pauls Valley City Lake earlier this week.
Pauls Valley Police Department, working with the Chickasaw Lighthorse Dive Team and a local wrecker service, spent much of the morning trying to map out a plan for the recovery and safely attach a winch cable and chain to the vehicle, before pulling it from the water just before 1 p.m.
Pauls Valley Police Chief Don May said the pickup was discovered Tuesday, after PVPD received a report from a fisherman using a sophisticated depth finder at the Pauls Valley City Lake who said he had located what he thought to be a vehicle in the water on the south end of the lake, near East County Road 1550.
The Chickasaw Lighthorse Dive Team was called in to help investigate the object. Visibility in the lake was poor, but the dive team was able to confirm it was a pickup truck in the lake, according to May, who also said authorities had no reason to believe there was anyone in the vehicle.
“It was sunk down in the mud pretty good, so we think it had probably been there for a while,” May said.
Attempts to pull the vehicle from the lake Tuesday failed, and the dive team made plans to return Friday and try again with sturdier cables and chains.
Once the vehicle was recovered, authorities were able to confirm there were no occupants inside what turned out to be a late 1990s or early 2000 model Dodge pickup.
The Pauls Valley Police Department said they will now begin working to identify the vehicle’s owner and try to ascertain how it ended up in the lake.
