MARION COUNTY, Fla. — At the bottom of an abandoned rock quarry, one of Marion County's most gruesome crimes was solved.
Marion County Sgt. Billy Padgett led a team of scuba divers, who recovered the remains of 15-year-old Seath Jackson, whose body had been hacked to pieces, stuffed into five-gallon buckets and dumped into the dark, murky hole.
"Being an officer a long time, I've seen a lot of things, but I've never seen anything like that," said Padgett. "I could not imagine anyone doing something like that to anyone."
Lt. Dennis Joiner supervised the search.
"Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the dives we do is in zero to 6 inches of visibility," he said, which was the case in their search for Jackson.
The job is dangerous, so the training is intense, officials said, and by some accounts, risky.
The Rainbow River is a crystal clear paradise, alive with fish and plants, but with tape over a diver's mask, it's black as pitch. The deputies dive blind, which is the only way to learn to see in the dark.
They work in teams, -crisscrossing a search area, feeling their way across the bottom through thick grass, around huge rocks, inch by inch by inch. Evidence can be right at their fingertips but still out of reach.
But patience and persistence pay off, because somewhere down there is the key to a crime.
In most cases, murder weapons like guns are found, helping in convictions. In Jackson's case, his body was recovered.
Five teenage conspirators went down for their roles in the crime, which started out as an argument over a girl. Michael Bargo has since been sentenced to death.
"He made his choice when he took Seath's life," said Sonia Jackson, Seath's mother.
And it hinged on what was hidden at the bottom of the quarry.
Padgett said he hopes he helped a grieving mother find closure.
"A lot of things aren't easy to deal with. A lot of things bring back memories. But it's just something that's part of the job," he said.