The cars were submerged in about 12 feet of water and were only about 50 feet from the end of a boat ramp near a marina. But Peoples said it was no surprise that the murky waters held a secret.
“This lake isn’t crystal clear. It’s a typical western Oklahoma lake with a lot of silt in it. The visibility is only 6 to 12 inches on a good day,” Peoples said. “We’ll consider it a mystery until we prove otherwise."
Investigators say they believe one car may have belonged to a teenager who disappeared with two friends in 1970, and the other car could be linked to the disappearance of a man in the 1960s who a federal official says was with a sibling and a friend, officials told CNN and its affiliates KFOR and KOCO.
Darrell Splawn, a diver with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, was sent down on Tuesday, one week after the sonar located the corroding vehicles. They were right next to each other, at a depth of 12 feet and 50 feet from a marina. Visibility was almost nil.
"One of the very first inklings that we had evidence of a possible collision was from the arm of the fan," said Hoyle. "The fan looked like it had gotten into the radiator a little bit and also the bottom of the frame. The motor mount, the one on the passenger side, it was knocked off. It had broken the fuel pump."
Hoyle said the drive shaft was knocked out of the 1969 Camaro.
By Michael Martinez, CNN
updated 9:21 PM EDT, Thu October 10, 2013
(CNN) -- Human remains from an Oklahoma lake match the general description of three teenagers who went missing in a car in 1970, but investigators are awaiting results from DNA testing to confirm their identities, the state medical examiner's office said Thursday.
The medical examiner's analysis also shows that the remains from a second car match the genders and adult age of three occupants in another car that went missing in 1969, according to the medical examiner's office. DNA results are also pending in that case.
On Friday, the medical examiner’s office says it identified one of the victims as 42-year-old Cleburn Hammack, who was formerly reported as Clayburn Hammock.
His body was discovered inside the Chevy sedan found in Foss Lake.
Authorities also identified another body as 16-year-old Jimmy Allen Williams, whose remains were found inside the Camaro.
According to the report, the incomplete skeletal remains consist of 105 bones, representing 58.1 percent by number and 92.47 percent by weight of a total skeleton. Authorities did not find any trauma to the remains, and do not believe that person was injured at the time of their death.