Charles Fluharty Has Been Located And Brought Home

Chaos Divers would like to offer our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Charles “Chuck” Fluharty.

With just two weeks until the 7 year anniversary of the date he went missing, we were able to locate and confirm his vehicle with the license plate that was attached.
After an arduous morning of pulling a dilapidated Cadillac that could potentially be linked to another case over two decades old, we chose to continue the search for Charles on Tuesday.

Our search began for Chuck last week when we were with AWP. We searched several areas and were able to mark a considerable amount of vehicles. I had the pleasure of diving with Doug to ensure they were not our target and clear them. That evening, with new search areas proposed, we chose to stay another day and check those areas. We searched an area that he often visited when burdens struck him in life. We were disheartened to go another day without locating him. With a tight schedule, we were contrived to move on to the next case in Pittsburgh.

On the afternoon of Tuesday, October 5th, we set out on our pursuit with the intentions of going outside of the original parameters that were set. We used the sonar and found several vehicles. These were not our target and were cleared. We continued down the river and headed to check one more location that was brought up as an area of concern by several who were involved.

As soon as we rounded our corner to our destination, a vehicle flashed on the sonar. It looked as if it had been there for quite some time. We scanned over it several times before dropping a magnet. Eric dove down and the vehicle was so silted over that he couldn’t locate it on the first dive attempt. He went down again and was able to find it. He said that it was so silted over that he almost thought it was just a mud mound, but ultimately found a corner of the car. He tried his hardest to locate a license plate, but was unable to. I dove down and was able, after getting my bearings, to locate a plate. With enormous effort I was able to remove it from the vehicle. I surfaced and began reading the plate. As soon as I spoke the first digit, the original detective knew immediately that it was our target. I finished reading off the plate and he yelled for me to read it again. He got on the phone and started to make all the proper connections. We were asked to pull the vehicle the next morning.

We returned Wednesday and met with those to be involved. We quickly got to work to extract the vehicle from the water way. After close examination and carefully sifting through the silt and debris in the car, we were able to determine that there were remains in the vehicle. The car was pulled onto shore as we all watched with a heavy heart.

We are led to believe that this a Charles based on the vehicle match and the verification of the remains being an amputee, as was Charles. This will be verified pending the DNA results.

We are saddened that Charles is no longer able to be with his loved ones, but thankful that they will lay their heads down at night knowing where he is.

We will be hosting a Live Steam event this afternoon to have a live discussion of the events that unfolded. There will be one Live Stream hosted at 2:00pmEST with Adventures with Purpose on their YouTube channel and one following on Chaos Divers.

We would like to give special thanks to those involved:
Josh Hammon for contacting AWP and making the connection with Detective Greg Smith
Saline Township Law Enforcement
Jefferson County Law Enforcement
City of East Liverpool
Calcutta Volunteer Fire Department
Adventures with Purpose, for creating this movement and allowing so many the opportunity to help families
There are many more that deserve thanks for helping in this case.

Keep Diving! It’s not worth it to stop! 🧡