For nearly a decade, Tony Luzio's car sat just below the surface of a small Delaware County pond, sinking into the muck, waiting to be found.

It probably would have stayed there, if not for the tenacity of investigators and an Illinois couple who searched the county, pond by pond, over the last year.

More than 250 bodies of water later, in a retention pond at the northwest corner of E. Orange and Old State roads, they found the 2004 Honda Civic that Anthony "Tony" Luzio Jr. was driving the night he was last seen in July 2005.

A body inside the car is believed to be Luzio; clothing matches what he was last seen wearing and his driver's license was inside.

If it is him, Delaware County's only open missing-persons case will be closed.

"This has never been a cold case," Sheriff Russ Martin said last night. "Maybe a lukewarm case, but never cold."

Luzio, 25, of Powell, disappeared on July 4, 2005 after leaving a party in Delaware County. Since then, authorities have searched along roads and in bodies of water trying to find Luzio, who was the son of retired Columbus police Sgt. Anthony Luzio Sr.

Investigators from a handful of agencies – including the sheriff's office and Powell Police Department – had enlisted the help Dennis and Tammy Watters to search as many of the county's 1,000 bodies of water as they could.

They were looking for ponds that were deep enough to hide a car and could be driven into from a roadway. Using geographic-information systems technology from the county auditor's office, they sought out bodies of water that back in 2005 had no obstacles – such as trees or a fence – around them, Capt. Kevin Savage said.

"We believe he drove off the roadway, for whatever reason," Savage said. "When you never have a person or a vehicle show up, in our mind, that vehicle has to be hidden somewhere."

In the spring, investigators had focused on 300 bodies of water within a 3-mile radius of the Rutherford Road home where Luzio was last seen.

They moved the target for today's search near Old State Road because a friend of Luzio's had lived close by.

"We were prepared to search every pond in Delaware County," Savage said.

The Watters, who own Team Watters Sonar Search and Recovery, had come to Delaware County eight times over the last year to search for Luzio. They became close with his parents, Carla and Anthony Sr.

Twelve ponds were searched today with their sonar-equipped, radio-controlled boat before they found the car around 4:30 p.m. in the 13th one they targeted.

"We always knew it was a solvable case," Dennis Watters said.

Martin said he wouldn't speculate about what might've happened when Luzio went missing. It's been a 9 1/2-year investigation, he said, and there's no rush to judgment now.

"It would be premature and presumptuous on my part to speculate what happened that night," Martin said.

Martin sent one of his detectives to the Luzio home tonight, to be with them as Bureau of Criminal Investigation officers searched their son's car. The deputy there said the family wasn't ready to talk.

Back in May 2013, after the discovery of three long-missing women in the basement Ariel Castro's home in Cleveland, Luzio Sr. told the Dispatch that his family held out hope that "maybe some day we could have the same happy ending."

"You think, maybe there's a chance, a little bit of a chance," he said.

"It's like he fell off the face of the earth."

Tonight, the Luzio family finally got their answer, but not their happy ending.