After popular YouTube divers find missing Iowa man, a dispute begins over $100K reward
The discovery provided answers after years of anxious wondering for an Iowa family.
Ethan Kazmerzak disappeared in the middle of the night in September 2013 near Hampton, a rural town of about 4,200. The 22-year-old last was seen at a party by a pond, the last sign of life a phone call to his mother shortly after midnight, the Globe Gazette reported.
Despite a $100,000 reward and search efforts since he vanished, Kazmerzak was never heard from again.
The case attracted the attention of Adventures with Purpose, a dive team popular on YouTube. Videos of the Oregon-based scuba divers finding missing people and lost valuables get millions of views.
The team traveled to Iowa in September in hopes of finding Kazmerzak, but the trip ultimately proved unsuccessful after they searched several ponds.
“This is a real life treasure hunt,” Jared Leisek, the leader of the group, said in a video. “There’s $100,000 on the line if you can find Ethan. We didn’t find Ethan we weren’t able to bring resolution to the family today.”
The team returned about a month later learning the party Kazmerzak attended was near a pond they hadn’t searched. The water had been searched twice without success, authorities say.
Leisek and crew member Sam Ginn slowly boated across the water until uncovering a clue with sonar equipment: the shape of a car under the surface.
“Is your heart racing?” Leisek asks Ginn in a video posted to YouTube. “You’re choking up. I’m choking up.”
They dropped a magnet to the spot, confirming an underwater vehicle.
“If you want to know why we do this, it’s because today the family is going to have answers,” Leisek said.
A day later, the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office pulled Kazmerzak’s 2006 Volkswagen from the pond. Authorities sent human remains in the car to the state medical examiner for confirmation of Kazmerzak’s identity, the Globe Gazette reported.
Reward dispute
Now there’s a dispute about whether Adventures with Purpose will get the $100,000.
The dive team hasn’t been paid the reward, the Des Moines Register reported.
Brad Staley, a local businessman who organized the reward, told the newspaper the money wasn’t paid upfront and only pledged. He said the reward wasn’t renewed for this year, the Des Moines Register reported.
“As you can imagine, with pledges seven years after the fact, there would’ve been businesses that pledged that are no longer in business,” Staley told the newspaper. “People that pledged that are no longer alive, people that pledged whose financial situations have severely changed.”
In the same month Adventures with Purpose first visited, TV station KCCI cited police as saying the reward remained valid.
Leisek told KWWL the team didn’t take on the search for the reward but believes it’s owed the money.
“The claim is that by allowing the $100,000 reward flyers to remain within the community, along with press confirming annually that the $100,000 reward was still active as late as September 2020, no notification to our organization after the viewing of our first video on October 2nd, nor any word on any expiration of any reward while we were in town, the $100,000 is/was an active contract the day we found Ethan,” he told KWWL.
Leisek said the team may file a lawsuit for the money because rewards and donations help fund their efforts, KWWL reported.
“We never (pursued) Ethan’s case because there was a reward tied to it,” Leisek told the Des Moines Register. “If you take away this reward, you have ruined the integrity of what rewards are there for.”
This story was originally published December 18, 2020 at 1:20 PM with the headline "After popular YouTube divers find missing Iowa man, a dispute begins over $100K reward."