From the local reports:
N.C. Department of Transportation workers followed skid marks near the Red Oak exit on northbound I-95 near mile marker 140, then spotted the Guay's white Mazda 3 submerged in a small creek, said 1st Sgt. Keith Stone of the N.C. Highway Patrol.
The car left the road, veered down the bank and ricocheted off a tree before hitting the creek and sinking to the bottom of the 6- to 8-foot deep unnamed body of water. The license plate of the car was barely visible, he said.
"It just happened to go right into the mouth of the creek," Stone said, adding that the time of the crash has not been determined because the cold water helped preserve the bodies. "(But) I wouldn't have any reason to believe it's inconsistent with when they left."
Rocky Mount is about 225 miles from Myrtle Beach or roughly a 3 1/2-hour drive. Stone said speeding does not seem to have been a factor and that it appeared the brakes were tapped slightly before the car left the road.
Wayne Guay appears to have been driving, Stone said, and neither Wayne nor Dianne were wearing a seat belt when the car was removed from the water. The impact with the tree penetrated the driver's side of the car and left a hole about 10 inches in diameter, Stone said.
The Stony Creek Rescue Squad sent a diver into the water to do a preliminary investigation of the scene after the car was found at about 3:30 p.m. The murky water prevented the investigator from determining anything except the doors were closed and all the windows except the front driver's side one were intact, said Rescue Squad Chief Phil Rowe.
and
The State Law Enforcement Division took to the air Monday, and the Guay family hired its own private helicopter through Executive Helicopters Inc. of North Myrtle Beach, to try to locate the couple's white 2003 Mazda.
Shane Duffy, the chief pilot with Executive Helicopters, said he was circling the swamp - about eight miles north of the Rocky Mount, N.C., airport - and spotted the car at about the same time police arrived at 4:30 p.m.
He said he saw tire tracks that looked like a car had slid sideways off the east side of the highway into a 20-foot-wide creek just before a small bridge.
"Exactly how or why would just be a shot in the dark," Duffy said.
"neither Wayne nor Dianne were wearing a seat belt when the car was removed from the water"
Oh yes, I'm SURE if they had been wearing precious seat belts, they would've been saved from the murky waters.
</snark