Cody Holmes is a tow truck operator in Iowa. On Saturday, June 21st the Story County Sheriff’s Office asked him to help recover a vehicle from a lake. It had pinged on a recreational boater’s sonar and the Sheriff wanted to know if it was related to any recent crimes. But nothing could have prepared Holmes for what he’d actually find.

Sheriff’s Department divers wrapped a tow strap around the vehicle so Holmes could lift it from the water. As it neared the surface, its shape materialized. It was a red compact truck, an old Ford Ranger to be exact.

The sight of the truck on his hook must have been a trip down memory lane for Holmes. Years before running a tow truck, he’d learned to drive stick shift in his mom’s old Ford Ranger. She’d even promised him the truck on his 16th birthday. But then it was stolen.

Cody Holmes’ Ford Ranger: back from the dead

A nearby police cruiser’s speaker crackled. Holmes said, “I heard over dispatch’s radio that it (the truck) came back to (my mother).”

He was blown away. “It was kind of shocking to hear her name come over the radio when the truck’s been missing for 20 years.”

The truck, rusty and filled with mud, looked as if it had spent most of those two decades in the lake. The front end was smashed in. Holmes assumed someone stole it for a joyride, crashed it immediately, and sank the evidence. But naturally, he needed to call his mom–Robin French Frazier–to tell her about his find.

Frazier said, “I assumed that the truck was gone forever, but never imagined that it would be found like this…I threw the title away a couple of years ago because I didn’t expect to ever see it again after this long.”

Holmes admitted the coincidence was uncanny. “It was mind-blowing, the odds that 20 years later I’m the one running the tow truck that ends up pulling it out.”