Divers found the body of James Amabile, who disappeared on Dec. 4, 2003.
Stephen Amabile stood by a dock along Darby Creek on Saturday morning, keeping optimism in check as he waited for an independent dive team to surface from the murky water.
So when Amabile saw the diver’s hand emerge from the water holding the blue-and-white Pennsylvania license plate — FLA 4785 — they’d pried off the Ford Explorer, he believed the closure he wasn’t expecting was placed gently in his hands.“It’s my brother,” Amabile told The Inquirer hours later. “They found him.”
Amabile said the divers told him human remains were in the driver’s seat, still buckled in with a seat belt. For Amabile, the location of the Ford Explorer in Darby Creek, just blocks from that babysitter’s home, confirms his theory. He believes his brother, who was diabetic, had a hectic day, slipped into diabetic shock, and drove straight into the creek after making a wrong turn.
“Honestly, I wasn’t expecting anything. I’ve gotten used to not expecting anything, and I tuned a lot of things out,” Amabile said. “But it didn’t take them very long to figure out there was an SUV down there.”Diver Anthony Giampetro confirmed that human remains were found in the SUV, but he said Saturday night it wasn’t certain that they were those of James Amabile, since the driver’s identity had not yet been ascertained.