He says it was raining hard that day in 2005, just like Thursday.

"There was a lot of water running through the Cahaba River, and it took a while, it took a day to find the car."

When searchers did find Brandee Skinner's car, they also found her children, drowned inside.

"And it was a very, very sad day for all of us in the City of Hoover when we found the two kids still strapped in their car seats and it was a tragic event," Petelos said.

Skinner's attorney, Tommy Spina, tells CBS 42 that she had struggled for years with bipolar disorder, and she was charged with manslaughter by a grand jury for driving under the influence of her prescription medications.

Spina says he has spoken with people Skinner stayed with in Macon who told him she was planning a trip, and he does not believe the overdose was intentional.

Spina says her medications had recently been changed.

Back in Hoover, Mayor Petelos says the death is a tragic end to a tragic story: "It's sad to hear that she passed away; when you lose two children, that's just got to be terrible experience for her, but just to live with that for the last several years."

Brandee Skinner's funeral will be this Sunday in Gray, Georgia, which is near Macon.