April 29, 2025
Provided Image/Camden County Police Department
Bernadine Gunner, 52, of Camden, was last seen by her family in July 2010. Her remains were found last May inside her car that had been submerged in the Cooper River. DNA testing has confirmed the remains found belong to Gunner.
A Camden woman whose remains were found in a car pulled out of the Cooper River last spring has been identified conclusively with the help of DNA testing, Camden County prosecutors said Tuesday. The woman had been missing since 2010.
The discovery was made last May when an independent investigator from United Search Corps, a nonprofit that assists in finding missing people, located a 2006 Hyundai Elantra in the river using a sonar device. The car belonged to Bernadine Gunner, who was 52 when her family last saw her on July 11, 2010.
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At the time Gunner went missing, she had told family members she planned to take her life, because she was unable to find a job. Her car was last seen on the 1300 block of Park Boulevard in Camden, less than a mile from where it was found in the Cooper River.
Investigators still do not know how Gunner's car ended up in the river, and her cause of death has not been determined.
Julia Young, one of Gunner's children, had been critical of Camden's investigation into her mother's disappearance. She and other families had sought help from United Search Corps to check for Gunner's car in the river.
"Final closure I guess," Young wrote on Facebook earlier this month after detectives called to share the DNA results. "I can't truly say if it's really closure to me at this point. I know (I) will probably NEVER find out what really happened, so that right there is a hard pill to swallow."
The family held a memorial service for Gunner on Monday night at Doreen Boyd Legacy Hall in Camden.
Gunner's Hyundai was one of three cars United Search Corps found in the same area of the Cooper River. There were no remains found in the other cars, and investigators have not provided any information about those vehicles.
"We pretty much knew who we had," United Search Corps diver Doug Bishop told NBC News last year after the remains were found in the Hyundai.
DNA was extracted from Gunner's remains by a private forensic lab in Virginia and the samples were sent to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification to confirm Gunner's identity, authorities said.
"Missing person cases are heartbreaking because family members are left wondering what happened to their loved one," Camden County Prosecutor Grace C. MacAulay said Monday. "While we strongly believed the remains recovered from the Cooper River belonged to Bernadine, the confirmation through forensic DNA testing finally provides her family with a definitive answer and closure."
