Two young mothers who vanished 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. A day later, the Berrien County medical examiner’s office confirmed the identifications of Vanessa Bautista, 24, and Alexa Navarro, 23, both of South Bend, Ind.
Medical examiners confirmed on September 16 that the two women died in the vehicle they were last seen in.
Investigators, five days on, still cannot say how the women died or how the vehicle ended up in the water. Police are chasing down reports that another driver followed, or pursued, the Jeep 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?”
He has been careful about what the physical evidence shows. “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. Investigators began searching the river — both above and below the dam — after cell phone and vehicle data suggested the vehicle was in that area, and the recovery response was to the St. Joseph River near Bond Street.
Searchers found the Jeep roughly eight hours into Tuesday’s operation, which drew several local police agencies along with K-9 teams and drones. Dozens of people had come out that day for a third day of searching, many of them visibly shaken.
Relatives were first to say the vehicle had surfaced, identifying it as the gray 2020 Jeep Grand Cherokee the women were last seen driving. Police followed a couple of hours later with confirmation that a Jeep holding two women had been located. “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. Late in the day, officers floated the wreck to shore.
Onlookers who saw how badly the vehicle was battered began speculating that another vehicle had forced it off the road. A plainer explanation for the damage is the one Millin offers. “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 went over.
Volunteers handed out a missing persons flyer during the search that called the Jeep gray, noted the cover missing from a back tire and the rust where the cover would have been, and placed the last sighting of the two women in the Niles and South Bend area.
The Last Hours Before They Vanished
The pair spent Saturday night, September 12, at a nightclub in Elkhart, Ind., celebrating a birthday with Navarro’s cousin and two other friends. Relatives said Navarro dropped her cousin at home around 3:30 a.m., then the two went to get something to eat.
Neither woman was heard from again by her family. Relatives said their phones last pinged in Niles between 3 and 4 a.m., and a camera in the city caught Navarro at about 4:30 a.m. That morning, the families reported the two missing. Neighbors living near the river have since told reporters that police activity woke the area early that Sunday.
The father of Navarro’s child said nothing about their last encounter suggested she would end up where the Jeep was found. “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 in remarks reported September 16.
Three Departments, One Case
The case is being worked jointly, say police in South Bend, Elkhart and Niles, none of whom has described itself as the lead agency. While the two were still missing, that left their relatives driving between jurisdictions. “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. Answers were what Vanessa’s sister, Jocelyne Bautista, vowed to keep showing up for: “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 joined the search after the two disappeared. A prayer vigil on Monday, September 14, filled Holy Cross Church, and a protest organizers had planned for the following evening became a second vigil at Muessel Grove Park.
Hundreds gathered at St. Adalbert Church in South Bend on the evening 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, police have said, will likely take weeks, and investigators are weighing whether drugs or alcohol played any part. Millin said the recovery of the two women does not close the case. “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 also been in contact with both families, Millin has 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; she graduated from Marian High School in 2021. She worked at Indiana Health Centers and leaves a three-year-old son, while Bautista leaves two sons, ages two and three. Mourners gathered for Navarro’s visitation on Sunday afternoon, September 20 in South Bend, ahead of a Mass of Christian Burial on Monday at St. Adalbert Catholic Church. Bautista’s family held her visitation on Monday, with her Mass on Tuesday at the same church. The date of death listed in both obituaries is September 13.
Brisaida Moreno, Bautista’s cousin and babysitter, told WSBT, in remarks reported September 16: “Vanessa and Alexa have been friends since, like, middle school. They, they’re like conjoined at the hip; they’re inseparable. They live right down the street from each other. Their firstborn sons were born on the same exact day, hours apart, like they are the definition of what you call best friends.”
