Divers find body and car in search of missing California teen Kiely Rodni

TRUCKEE, Calif. — Divers searching for missing California teen Kiely Rodni said they have discovered a body and car in the reservoir near where she was last seen more than two weeks ago.

A dive crew found what they believe is the 2013 Honda CRV that Rodni, 16, drove to a graduation party near the lake out of Prosser Creek Reservoir Sunday afternoon.

Police could not immediately identify the body. A spokeswoman for Rodni’s family said they had not confirmed the body was the teen’s.

The Placer County Sheriff, California Highway Patrol and Truckee Police are on site with a flatbed tow truck and two police divers have suited up.

Rodni was last seen at the park in Truckee, California on Aug. 6. Fellow party-goers had reported that she had been drinking at the party.

Dive crew Adventures With Purpose was recruited by law enforcement for the probe and began searching the reservoir Sunday.

The Oregon-based crew of six divers gave it another go in hopes of finding any sign of Rodni, after at least three police dive teams have already searched the reservoir. 

The divers searched nearly every body of water near Truckee, CA before probing the water closest to where the party was held one last time. 

The team had been assured by law enforcement on the ground that the body of water had already been searched thoroughly, but decided to check again. 

“Police told us they did a rigorous search of this body of water,” diver Josh Cantu, 31, said. “They gave us a grid map and made us confident we didn’t need to search here.”

Within a few minutes of diving, one of the team members, Nick Rinn, 48 found a body in a car close to shore.

“Our sonar showed an object bigger than a rock that shouldn’t have been there,” Cantu said, adding that sonar tech can miss large objects if operators aren’t properly trained. “One of our divers went underwater and was able to identify a vehicle.”

The car and body were found about 20 to 40 feet from the water’s edge near a section of Prosser Family Campground where the party was held. The area is known to locals as “The Sanctuary” and overlooks the Prosser Creek Reservoir.

Earlier in the day, another member of the dive team told The Post that locating a vehicle would make the search for Rodni easier. 

“If there’s a car in here, it will be easy for us to find,” diver Doug Bishop, 39, said. “To hide a body is one thing, to conceal a vehicle is entirely different.”

He said his team on Saturday “already cleared everything in Truckee, including all the little ponds, based on confidential information we received in regards to her disappearance.”

The six divers in the AWP crew first spent four hours imaging the surface of the reservoir in two inflatable boats kitted out with sonar to get a better sense of what they were up against.

The team also surveyed the reservoir from a hot air balloon.

In the past two-and-a-half years, AWP said they have solved 23 cold cases and found around 500 vehicles underwater, 187 of which they have recovered. 

“This is a completely different scale of resources applied to the case already,” Bishop said. 

The discovery of the car and body comes more than two weeks after Rodni was reported missing and after officials announced that they would scale back the massive search for the teenager. 

Rodni was last seen at the party — in the company of about 100 people — around 12:30 a.m. and had texted her mom that she was heading home soon, but she never made it back.

On Saturday, the teen’s family asked for privacy and said they are not speaking with the media.

“It is in our hearts that you are out there and we will find you and bring you home,” the family said in a statement about Kiely on Saturday.

Investigators had feared Rodni may have been abducted and conducted a sweep of registered sex offenders in the Lake Tahoe region as part of the missing person case.