(Source: Louisiana State Police)
Brady Brown
Eddie Cobb
Ella WilliamsMONROE, LA (WIS) - Investigators in Louisiana have positively identified the bodies of three people found in a submerged car who were recently in Columbia for a funeral back on Jan. 4.
Officials identified the trio as 48-year-old Brady Brown, 67-year-old Eddie Lee Cobb, Jr., and 51-year-old Ella Williams. The group left Columbia on Jan. 7 and headed toward Shreveport, Louisiana following the funeral of Brown's mother.
Investigators located the car they were driving on Interstate 20 in Monroe, Louisiana. The vehicle went off the road near mile marker 161 near Madison Parish and straight into the Tensas River. Troopers did a fly over of the area Tuesday and spotted the car's bumper in the river.
Crews on the ground retrieved the bumper from the water and confirmed it was the missing Dodge through the registration tag. They started searching the river for the car Tuesday, but it was not located until Wednesday morning.
Investigators say Cobb was driving the car. Brown was in the front seat and Williams was in the back seat.
The Madison Parish Coroner will be conducting an autopsy on Cobb to see if a medical condition could have caused the crash. Louisiana State Police do not suspect foul play.
Investigators have not yet determined how long the vehicle was in the water.
Cobb and Williams planned to drop off Brown in Shreveport so he could pick up a truck he purchased. Following that, Williams and Cobb were heading to Texas.
Relatives say they never arrived in Shreveport or Texas and hadn't heard from them since. Police say repeated calls made by family members went straight to voice mail.
Police say the last known communication was made from a cell phone belonging to one of the three east of Birmingham, Alabama on Jan. 7.
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