Two young mothers from South Bend, Ind., who disappeared after a night out with friends were found dead inside a Jeep pulled from the St. Joseph River in Niles, Mich., on Tuesday, September 15, 2026. Vanessa Bautista, 24, and Alexa Navarro, 23, were named as the victims a day later, when the Berrien County medical examiner’s office confirmed the identifications.
Five days on, investigators still cannot say how the women died or how the vehicle ended up in the water. Officers are also running down accounts that the Jeep was followed, or chased, before it left the road.
“I’ve heard both that the girls were followed from the establishment that they left in Elkhart and also been followed in Niles,” Niles Public Safety Director James Millin told People magazine. “Some people are saying ‘followed,’ other people are saying ‘chased,’ so of course we’re looking into all that to try to determine, is this factual? And if so, what, if any part, did it play in them ending up in the river?”
On what the physical evidence actually shows, he has stayed measured. “Right now, there do not appear to have been any outside forces, you know, such as pushing the vehicle off the road or something like that — but again that is still under investigation,” Millin said.
A Search That Ended in the River
Niles police said on September 16 that the Jeep went over the embankment in the area of Laurel Drive and South Lincoln Avenue. Cell phone and vehicle data had suggested the vehicle was in that area, they said, and crews searched the river both above and below the dam; police responded to the river near Bond Street when it was located. Several local police agencies took part in the effort, joined by K-9 teams and drones, and roughly eight hours into Tuesday’s search crews located the Jeep. Dozens of volunteers had turned out that day for a third day of searching, many of them visibly shaken.
Relatives were the first to say the vehicle had surfaced, identifying it as the gray 2020 Jeep Grand Cherokee the women were last seen driving. Officers confirmed the find a couple of hours later: a Jeep, with two women inside. “I can confirm that there are two females in the vehicle, and by the clothing description we do believe it’s the women involved in this case,” Millin said that afternoon, hours before any formal identification. Crews floated the wreck to shore late in the day.
The condition of the vehicle fed speculation that something else had run it off the road. Millin points to a plainer explanation for the damage. “A lot of people were concerned that the vehicle had a lot of damage and I don’t think they understand that the vehicle went off an embankment and down approximately 60 or 70 feet of a pretty steep incline, hitting trees and so on on the way down before it hit the water,” he said. Video from the neighborhood shows a damaged tree near the point where the Jeep left the road.
Searchers handing out a missing persons flyer described the Jeep as gray, with the cover missing from a back tire and rust where the cover would have been. The flyer placed the two women in the Niles and South Bend area when they were last seen.
The Last Hours Before They Vanished
A birthday celebration at a nightclub in Elkhart, Ind., drew the pair out on Saturday night, September 12, together with Navarro’s cousin and two other friends. Around 3:30 a.m., Navarro dropped her cousin at home, relatives said, and she and Bautista went to get something to eat.
Neither family heard from them after that. Relatives said the women’s phones last pinged in Niles between 3 and 4 a.m., and a camera recorded Navarro in the city around 4:30 a.m. Both families filed missing persons reports that morning. Neighbors who live near the river have since told reporters that police were active in the area early that Sunday.
The father of Navarro’s child said his last encounter with her gave no hint of where she would end up. “She would always take one route. Me and her would always take one route back and forth, which is Portage, which is so weird why she would come this way,” he told WNDU on September 16.
Three Departments, One Case
Three departments — South Bend, Elkhart and Niles — say the case is a joint effort, and not one of them has claimed the role of lead agency. While the women were still missing, that left relatives driving from one jurisdiction to the next. “We spent all day doing that, driving back and forth between South Bend and Niles, and we still don’t know who has jurisdiction,” said Nixie Sanchez, Navarro’s cousin. Vanessa’s sister, Jocelyne Bautista, vowed to keep showing up until she got a response: “If I need to show up every day to every police station just to get some answers, I’m going to show up.”
Friends, relatives and neighbors across South Bend were drawn into the search by the disappearance. A prayer vigil on Monday, September 14, filled Holy Cross Church, and organizers converted a protest planned for the next evening into a second vigil at Muessel Grove Park. Hundreds gathered at St. Adalbert Church in South Bend on the night of Wednesday, September 16, for a Holy Hour and Mass for the two women. “There’s a deep sadness in my heart too. I know both of these families are both involved here in our community, here in our parish, and it just is a heavy heart. There’s not much you can say, of course, to get the pain away,” Pastor Father Ryan Pietrocarlo told WSBT.
What Investigators Said Comes Next
Cause and manner of death are pending for both women. Toxicology results will likely take weeks, police have said. Whether drugs or alcohol played any part is part of the investigation. Medical examiners confirmed on September 16 that the two women died in the vehicle they were last seen in. Police said that as of that day there was no indication of external forces damaging the vehicle, and that this portion of the investigation remains ongoing, as does whether any criminal activity was involved. Finding the two women, Millin said, does not close it. “How this happened, what exactly happened, is still under investigation,” he said. “It doesn’t stop here. The investigation doesn’t end just because they’ve been located.”
Officers have been in contact with both families, Millin has also said. “Obviously, they’re distraught and sad,” he told the Herald-Palladium. “That’s not the information we want to give them, but they deserve it.”
The same parish will bury both women. Navarro’s obituary gives her full name as Alexandra Guadalupe Navarro, an employee of Indiana Health Centers; she leaves behind a son who is three years old. Two sons, ages two and three, survive Bautista. Both women graduated from Marian High School in 2021, and the school was hosting a Mass the following Thursday, with the owner of the Niles Hardee’s planning a fundraiser for the families. St. Adalbert Catholic Church will host both services: mourners were to gather for Navarro’s visitation on Sunday afternoon, September 20 in South Bend, with a Mass of Christian Burial on Monday, while Bautista’s visitation follows on Monday and her Mass on Tuesday at that same church. The date of death listed in both obituaries is September 13.
