Missing scribe's SUV found; remains inside
Anonymous tip to publicist leads to discovery
Human remains were found inside DeVore's submerged Ford Explorer in the California Aqueduct near Palmdale.
The vehicle was in an upright position under 15 feet of water in the concrete open river channel that carries water from the San Joaquin Valley through Los Angeles.
Divers from the Santa Barbara and Los Angeles County sheriff's departments were steered to the aqueduct after an anonymous tipster claimed to have found parts of a vehicle nearby that matched the sport utility vehicle driven by DeVore.
"We're confident we have located Mr. DeVore's vehicle," said Santa Barbara County sheriff's Sgt. Mike Burridge. DeVore's Carpinteria home is located in his jurisdiction.
However, Burridge said they couldn't immediately confirm that the remains were DeVore's and that dental records would need to be used for a positive identification.
The 55-year-old DeVore, who penned "Running Scared," the 1986 Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines buddy-cop film, had spent four days near Santa Fe, N.M., working on a script dubbed "The Big Steal," a remake of the 1949 Robert Mitchum pic. He had been working at the home of family friend Marsha Mason before he disappeared.
On his way to Carpinteria, he called his wife as he passed through Barstow and said he would be home soon. A gas station surveillance camera captured DeVore earlier making a purchase in Flagstaff, Ariz.
But there were no sightings following the stop, only a cellular call to his wife at 12:38 a.m. made from an area near Mojave, south of Barstow.
The search of the aqueduct began after the tipster contacted DeVore's publicist, who contacted authorities.
DeVore's disappearance had been widely covered by the media, including a spot on "America's Most Wanted," with speculation that he was a victim of foul play and that it was somehow related to the subject matter of the screenplay he was writing.
DeVore was using the U.S. invasion of Panama and the alleged involvement of the CIA with former dictator Manuel Noriega's drug and money laundering operation as a story line.
In the weeks following her husband's disappearance, Wendy DeVore hired private detectives, organized air and ground searches and even sought the advice of psychics in an effort to find him.
