Divers head out into Lake Oconee to continue search for missing teacher

The search for missing teacher Gary Jones in Lake Oconee is continuing.

Saturday marks three weeks since Jones and his fiancée, Joycelyn Wilson, went boating on Lake Oconee and vanished. Wilson’s body was pulled from the water the next day.

Channel 2′s Bryan Mims was at the lake on Saturday as six professional divers began searching the lake for Jones.

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They started their efforts in a section of the lake nearly the size of a football field that has consistently triggered responses from search dogs.

“That’s where the evidence points to where this accident or whatever occurred,” Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills said.

Sills says the area is filled with submerged trees, which can be a significant obstacle for divers.

“The trees pose a real hazard. There’s fishing lines, there’s lures, there’s ropes, there’s all kinds of stuff that’s down at the bottom,” Sills said.

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Richard Pickering, who leads the nonprofit Emergency Dive Response Team, has organized the volunteer search efforts.

He told Mims that the divers have experience searching in murky water filled with trees, rocks and debris.

Pickering says they set up search grids shaped like a wagon wheel.

“They’ll go down in a single point. They’ll spread out and go in multiple directions. Once they get to a certain distance, they’re gonna reverse and come back in. They’re gonna pick up and they’re gonna move over and do it again,” Pickering said.

He added that the divers come from all across Florida and Georgia.

“We have a tragic situation, but it’s a good thing to see this many people volunteering to help,” Sheriff Sills said.

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