Cops: Missing N.D. Students Found Dead

Police say three missing North Dakota college softball players have been found dead in their vehicle, which was pulled from a pond northwest of Dickinson.

Police Lt. Rod Banyai said Tuesday night that police are still investigating the cause of the deaths at this time.

Searchers notified police Tuesday afternoon that vehicle tracks were found leading to the pond and oil residue was seen floating on the surface of the water. A dive team investigated and found the vehicle in the pond approximately two hours later.

"We are deeply saddened by this turn of events," said Constance Walter, director of university relations at Dickinson State University where the women attended. "We are going to mobilize resources to work with the families and students on campus."

Authorities have been searching since Sunday night for 22-year-old Kyrstin Gemar of San Diego; 20-year-old Afton Williamson, of Lake Elsinore, California; and 21-year-old Ashley Neufeld of Brandon, Manitoba. The women were last heard from late Sunday night.

Earlier Tuesday, the father of one of three missing college softball players said that the women often went star gazing near a lake in southwestern North Dakota.The police do not suspect foul play in their disappearances.

Lenny Gemar told ABC's Good Morning America in a telephone interview that the Dickinson State University students were known to hang out by Patterson Lake near the city and "just look up at the stars and, you know, chat about the things that teenagers will chat about."

Dickinson Police Lt. Dave Wallace said a friend of the women received two telephone calls from them, about one minute apart, before the line cut out on Sunday. The exact words used in the calls and exactly which of the women they came from was not information immediately released.

Wallace said water was mentioned in the conversation, but that the exact context was not clear. The friend who received the calls called 911 to report that the women needed help.

Authorities also searched inside a 30-mile radius of the cell phone tower north of Dickinson where the calls came through on Monday, using three airplanes and officers on the ground. The search included Patterson Lake just southwest of Dickinson, a city of 16,000 people about 100 miles west of Bismarck and 60 miles east of the Montana state line.

The air search was called off after dark. Police Officer Thomas Grosz said the search was likely to resume early Tuesday and that he did not immediately know how many people it might involve.