At the bottom of a Canadian lake, Max Werenka discovered the key to a 27-year-old mystery.

At a remote lake in British Columbia, Canada, a boat glides through the murky waters. Onboard, Max Werenka, just 13-years-old, is guiding the authorities to an ominous spot. And when they can’t see what lies beneath the surface, he bravely straps on his GoPro camera and dives in. The resulting footage later reveals something horrifying – and it helps to solve a decades-old cold case.

Image: Facebook/Griffin Lake Cabins – Revelstoke, BC

In August 2019 Werenka was staying at Griffin Lake, a popular holiday spot he had visited on hundreds of occasions This time, though, things were a little different. While out exploring, the teenager noticed something strange glistening underneath the water. It was an out-of-place object that had a distinctly man-made look.

In fact, Werenka had stumbled across the remains of a car, resting around 20 feet beneath the surface. How had this vehicle ended up at the bottom of Griffin Lake? What story might its twisted wreck have to tell? With the teenager’s help, authorities uncovered a gruesome secret. And in the process, they solved a mystery that had haunted one family for almost 30 years.

Image: Facebook/Griffin Lake Cabins – Revelstoke, BC

Although just a teenager, Werenka has a long history with this picturesque corner of Canada. In fact, his family owns Griffin Lake Cabins, a small resort consisting of three holiday homes located in the wilderness between the cities of Calgary and Vancouver. But while beautiful, the spot is remote, and the nearest town, Revelstoke, is some 16 miles to the east.

At Griffin Lake, tourists come to experience life in the wilderness away from the hustle and bustle of the city. While there, they spend their days fishing and swimming in the cool water, or hiking through the surrounding countryside. And when the conditions are right, they can also enjoy snowmobiling and sledding in the nearby mountains.

Image: Facebook/Griffin Lake Cabins – Revelstoke, BC

For Werenka, however, an entirely different adventure was about to unfold. With his parents the custodians of their own slice of paradise, the teenager had plenty of time to explore the surroundings of Griffin Lake. And perhaps unsurprisingly, he soon developed a love of nature. But like many children of the current generation, he was not content to merely observe.

Instead, Werenka began documenting his adventures around Griffin Lake. And in order to do so, he turned to his trusty GoPro – a hardy brand of video camera beloved by extreme sports fans around the world. But what this teenager eventually captured was a world away from the typical YouTube fare.

Image: Facebook/Griffin Lake Cabins – Revelstoke, BC

In August 2019 Werenka was enjoying one of his many visits to the family’s cabins on Griffin Lake. And one sunny day, he found himself in conversation with a family who were also staying at the small resort. They had, apparently, spotted something strange beneath the surface of the water, and asked the teenager to take a closer look.

Ever curious, Werenka climbed aboard his paddleboard and pushed out into the lake. And there, some 20 feet down, he spotted the object in question. “You could see something almost like a shadow, like an imprint,” he revealed to The Washington Post in September 2019. “Then, you could see something shiny.”

But what could it be? Soon, Werenka was able to identify the mystery object. Bizarrely, he realized that he was looking down on an exhaust pipe, watching the sun reflect off its metallic sides. And even though it seemed unlikely, it dawned on the teenager that he was looking at the submerged wreck of an upside-down car.

Image: Facebook/Griffin Lake Cabins – Revelstoke, BC

Shocked at the discovery, Werenka and the other guests looked online for an explanation. And before long, it seemed as if the mystery had been solved. Apparently, ten years previously, a car had been lost beneath the waters of Griffin Lake. Moreover, an internet search revealed that four people had been rescued from the terrifying situation.

The residents of Griffin Lake Cabins were satisfied that they had identified the sunken vehicle. So they let the incident slip from their minds. “At that point in time, we just kind of assumed that this car had been remaining from that 2009 rescue,” the teen’s mother Nancy Werenka told The Washington Post. “We didn’t call it in… We didn’t really think much of it.”

Image: Facebook/Griffin Lake Cabins – Revelstoke, BC

However, all that would soon change. The following day, an officer from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, arrived at Griffin Lake. Having traveled from Revelstoke, he was no doubt looking forward to a relaxing day enjoying a picnic with his loved ones. But soon, he found himself immersed in a strange mystery.

According to Nancy, the conversation began casually at first. “We just mentioned to that officer that there was a vehicle in the lake and we couldn’t believe that it wasn’t retrieved from the original rescue,” she commented. However, the lawman was convinced that the car from the 2009 accident had already been removed from the water.

“[The officer] said to us, ‘Well, no actually, [I’m] pretty sure that vehicle was retrieved out of the lake, so we need to investigate this further,” Nancy explained. And sure enough, on August 21, more officers arrived from the RCMP. And when they did, the teenager was ready to be their guide on the lake he knew so well.

“We took [the officers] out in our boat, showed them the area where it was,” Werenka told CTV News Vancouver in September 2019. The water conditions were, however, poor at the time. Which meant that officers struggled to make out the submerged vehicle from their position on the surface. And so, the teenager resorted to drastic measures.

Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, Werenka decided to get the officers the information they needed. Grabbing his trusty GoPro camera – which was equipped with waterproof protection – he dove down into the lake. And beneath the murky surface, he was able to capture clear footage of the submerged car.

“I recommended [to the RCMP] I had a GoPro, so we could use it to film underneath the water [and] get a better look at [the car],” Max said in a September 2019 interview with Global News. “So I went and swam around, and dove down and took a video of everything to show them.”

With Werenka’s footage in hand, officers were in no doubt that something strange lay at the bottom of Griffin Lake. In fact, the film – which has since been released online – clearly shows the underside of the vehicle. The teenager perfectly captured its four wheels turned towards the sky. But who had the car once belonged to? And how had it ended up here?

Watching the video, it soon became clear that the vehicle had been at the bottom of the lake for a long time. In fact, it was encased in a thick coating of mud, and vegetation and marine life had begun to thrive in the rusted wreck. It would, however be another three days before investigators got a take a closer look.

Eventually, on August 24, the RCMP made yet another trip to Griffin Lake. This time, though, they brought an experienced dive team along with them. And their official underwater investigation soon revealed its first clue: the car’s registration plate. One that linked the submerged vehicle to the 27-year-old case of a missing woman.

Image: via Facebook/Unidentified Human Remains Canada

Apparently, the vehicle belonged to Janet Farris, a 69-year-old woman who had gone missing back in the fall of 1992. Shockingly, her case had never been solved. And for nearly three decades, her family had been left to wonder what happened. Would this discovery finally provide them with closure after all these years?

Image: via Facebook/Curitiba RMC Notícias

As investigators hauled the Honda Accord to the surface, Werenka looked on with interest. However, he soon clocked that something was amiss. Emerging from the water, the vehicle did not show any signs that the driver had attempted to escape. In fact, all of the doors and windows were closed.

“It was very shocking,” Werenka told The Washington Post. “We weren’t expecting anything like this.” The story, however, was about to get even more gruesome. When they finally opened up the vehicle, investigators discovered a body trapped inside. Tragically, the fate of the missing woman had finally been revealed.

According to Farris’ family, the 69-year-old was not local to the area around Griffin Lake. In fact, she hailed from Vancouver Island some 400 miles to the east. At the time that she disappeared, however, she had been driving across the country to Alberta, where she planned to attend a wedding.

But because Farris had been traveling alone, her relatives did not immediately realize that something had gone wrong. “Two weeks later, we received a phone call from that family in Alberta asking why she never came to the wedding,” Erin Farris-Hartley, the granddaughter of the missing woman, told Global News in September 2019.

Farris’ family eventually realized that she was missing and alerted the authorities. However, they were unable to get to the bottom of her disappearance. After a while, those left behind came up with their own theories to explain what might have happened. And why a beloved mother and grandmother never came home.

“We kind of assumed that maybe [Farris] had gone off the road or fallen asleep, or tried to avoid an accident or animal on the road,” George Farris, the missing woman’s son, told CBC News in September 2019. And although time passed, the grandmother’s loved ones still wondered about her final moments. As a result, they struggled to put the past behind them.

“It seemed like there was never an appropriate way to grieve because [my grandmother] was missing,” Erin, who only 12 years old when Farris disappeared, told Global News. But despite that, she cherished memories of the 69-year-old, a woman who enjoyed gardening and making people laugh. “I miss her,” she continued. “She’s a huge part of my life even though most of my life is spent without her.”

Meanwhile, George told CTV News Vancouver that “good memories” helped him through the long years of not knowing what had happened to this mother. “After the first year, you just carry on,” he explained. “You come to live with it.” However, the family is grateful for Werenka’s discovery, and the opportunity to finally lay Farris to rest.

“We are so grateful that this boy went with his GoPro and found [her],” Erin told Global News. “This is a happy story in the end, knowing her final resting place and that it was an accident.” Meanwhile, Werenka himself has become quite the celebrity, winning acclaim for his role in solving the cold case.

In fact, Werenka even earned the respect of the authorities – along with a potential job offer for the future. “The RCMP will probably be looking at this guy down the road for potential employment,” Corporal Thomas Blakney said in a September 2019 interview with CTV News Vancouver. “[That was] good detective work on his part.”

Image: Revelstoke RCMP via CTV News Vancouver

Investigators, meanwhile have concluded that Farris most likely encountered difficulties while driving along Griffin Lake. And that for some reason – perhaps while swerving to avoid an animal – she lost control of the Honda Accord, eventually ending up in the water. Apparently, there was no damage to the front of the car, suggesting that she did not crash.

The family now intends to have Farris’ remains interred alongside those of her husband, who passed away before she disappeared. But while they’ have found closure at last, Werenka is still processing the full impact of his discovery. “I couldn’t imagine for that many years, not understanding what happened to a loved one,” he told CTV News Vancouver.

Bizarrely, it’s believed that the previous owners of the cabins spent 17 years exploring the waters of the Griffin Lake without stumbling upon the sunken car – despite its proximity to the shore. “This was a whole string of coincidental events,” Nancy told Global News. This, however, isn’t the only time that underwater footage has helped shed light on an old mystery.

In fact, in the same month that Werenka made his discovery, another story was unfolding thousands of miles away in Tennessee’s Foster Falls State Park. Two years previously, 22-year-old Richard Ragland had drowned while swimming in a waterfall there with friends. However, his parents had always wondered how the tragedy had taken place.

Then, in August 2019, underwater explorer Rich Abernathy – better known as Rich Aloha on YouTube – discovered Ragland’s GoPro camera submerged at the bottom of the falls. He was, rather amazingly, able to recover the footage and return it to the young man’s grieving parents. And even though it didn’t explain exactly how he died, it brought them closer to their departed son.

Meanwhile, back in April 2014, GoPro teamed up with a group of researchers for a very special project. And it involved hunting for missing World War II planes in the Pacific Ocean. Using the popular cameras, volunteers from the BentProp Project scanned the sea floor around the Republic of Palau in search of submerged craft.

With GoPro cameras mounted on underwater vehicles, scientists began their search. As a result, they were able to successfully locate two missing planes. And now, it’s hoped that this development will bring closure to those families – much in the same way that Werenka’s discovery has helped Farris’ loved ones to move on.

“Given a sad situation, it’s the best of all outcomes,” Farris’ son told CB News. But will Werenka continue to explore the waters of Griffin Lake? Considering that he was lauded as a hero by the international press, he might just be tempted to take the RCMP up on their offer. But a future in law enforcement is still long way off for the teenager.