Two Friends Went Fishing on the Mississippi River. Police Say They May Have Just Solved a 1967 Cold Case

Investigators pulled a 1960s Buick sedan from the waterway in central Minnesota that provides new details about a man’s disappearance more than 50 years ago

Sarah Kuta | Daily Correspondent

August 21, 2025

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Two friends were enjoying a casual weekend fishing outing on the Mississippi River in central Minnesota when they spotted an unusual shape on their sonar device.

Now, police say the anglers’ chance discovery could be the key to solving a decades-old cold case.

Investigators have recovered a 1960s Buick sedan that was submerged 20 feet deep in the waterway, reports WCCO’s Ashley Grams. The vehicle identification number linked the car to Roy Benn, a Minnesota man who went missing in September 1967. Inside, police also found human remains.

Authorities are still investigating, but based on the preliminary evidence, they think they have located Benn’s body after more than five decades of searching.

The vehicle was discovered in Sartell, a small city located roughly 75 miles northwest of Minneapolis. It was intact but “severely deteriorated” and full of river sediment, according to a statement from the Sartell Police Department.

Brody Loch, who is from nearby Watkins, Minnesota, initially spotted the car on his Garmin Livescope sonar device on August 9. His companion had just caught a fish when a vehicle-shaped figure appeared on the screen.

“It was 100 percent luck,” Loch tells WCCO. “If my buddy wouldn’t have caught that walleye, then we would have just kept on floating down and never would have found it.”

He returned to the same place on the river the next day with his family to check again. When he saw that the car was still there, he contacted the police. With help from a local towing company, investigators pulled the vehicle from the water on August 13, according to a statement from the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office.

“Tons of credit for a fisherman to actually see that and then have the forethought to call the sheriff’s office and make that report,” Brandon Silgjord, chief of the Sartell Police Department, tells WCCO.

Benn, who was from Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, was last seen driving a 1963 metallic blue Buick Electra. He had a large sum of money with him when he went missing, according to a missing person bulletin from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

Benn was the 59-year-old owner of the St. Cloud Appliance Repair Service, reports CNN’s Gordon Ebanks. On the last day he was seen alive, he had dined at the King’s Supper Club north of Sartell. His wife had died a year earlier.

As the years stretched into decades, investigators never stopped searching for Benn. However, none of the tips they received ever panned out. He was declared legally dead in 1975.

The human remains found in the car have been sent to the Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office for further investigation and possible identification. Because the body has been underwater for so long, traditional identification techniques probably “aren’t going to be real effective,” Troy Heck, the sheriff of Benton County, whose office is leading the case, tells CNN. However, at this point, authorities are confident the body belongs to Benn. They have notified his surviving relatives.

“We’re just grateful that we may likely have finally gotten the break that we needed to bring closure to this family,” Heck tells CNN.

Jeff Benn was just a toddler when his great-uncle went missing. He grew up hearing stories, rumors and theories about the “family mystery,” he tells KARE 11’s Gordon Severson.

“It looked like a mystery that was never going to be solved,” he adds.

He was shocked when he received a phone call from investigators about the vehicle and the body found in the Mississippi River. In 2018, he had provided a cheek swab DNA sample for investigators to use in case they ever located his great-uncle’s body. Though some onlookers have suggested Roy Benn might have been killed during a robbery, Jeff Benn suspects his great-uncle was simply the victim of an unfortunate car accident.

He’s still awaiting the official confirmation, but he already feels “relieved” to finally know what happened to his great-uncle, he tells KARE 11.

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.