UPDATE: Police identify two victims removed from the vehicle driven into Cape Fear River

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) - A red Dodge Challenger was extracted from the river around 5:30 p.m. Friday afternoon, using a crane and tugboat and two deceased individuals were found in the vehicle.

“The deceased have been identified as Je’Mel Sneed, 31, and Frederick Brock, 40. Both lived in Wilmington,” according to police.

The cause of the crash, and other details, remain under investigation.

The car was reportedly driven off a pier in downtown Wilmington and into the Cape Fear River early Friday morning.

“Just after midnight Friday, August 28, Wilmington police responded to the area of Front St. and Market St. in reference to a red vehicle seen driving over a pier and sinking into the Cape Fear River,” the Wilmington Police Department stated in a tweet.

Multiple emergency crews responded to the area and dive teams spent most of Friday morning searching for the vehicle.

Around 11 a.m., a spokeswoman for the WPD said the dive teams found “an object” in the river they believed could be the vehicle but the river’s current was making it difficult to retrieve.

After waiting until low tide Friday afternoon, dive teams resumed the search and confirmed that the object, which is about 35 feet deep, is red and appears to be the car that drove into the river. The police spokeswoman said the water was too murky for divers to see if anyone is inside the car.

A floating crane platform was brought in to hoist the vehicle out of the Cape Fear River and around 5 p.m., crews finally brought the car to the surface.

Crews then moved the crane platform across the river to Battlefield Park where a staging area was set up and the car was then fully removed from the water.

Copyright 2020 WECT. All rights reserved.