COLUMBIA, S.C. - The bodies of a Myrtle Beach couple traveling to New York City to visit family were found Monday inside their crashed car in a swamp off Interstate 95 near Rocky Mount, N.C., Horry County police said.

The white 2003 Mazda was found submerged in water around 5 p.m. after a transportation worker saw evidence a car might have left the highway, police said.

Two bodies were found inside the vehicle and were identified as Wayne Guay, 57, and Dianne Guay, 55, authorities said.

The couple's son-in-law in Queens, Daniel Rodriguez, said the family was distraught over the terrible news.

“Everybody is destroyed and devastated,” Rodriguez said from his home in the borough's Ridgewood section. “They would help anybody. It's just a shame this had to happen.”

He said it seemed the couple's car crash was an accident.

“They went off the road and crashed through a divider and went down an embankment and ended up in a swamp,” he said. “The swamp covered the car, about two feet over the top of the roof.”

Someone called 911 on Thursday morning to report a wreck near the location, but emergency officials couldn't locate a crashed car, North Carolina Highway Patrol Lt. Everett Clendenin said.

The couple were expected to leave Myrtle Beach early Thursday morning, arriving in Queens that evening. Family members became worried when calls to the couple's cell phone went straight to voice mail.

Wayne Guay was a former employee of New York's Department of Sanitation, and Dianne Guay was a former city school employee. They moved to the Myrtle Beach area several years ago after retiring. Relying on money wired to them by relatives and friends, the Guay family rented a helicopter for an hour and a half Sunday and five hours Monday to help search.

Over the weekend, authorities received unconfirmed reports the couple had been spotted in Richmond, Va., Horry County Deputy Chief David Beaty said.

Dianne Guay's sister, Lynne Conway, said she had viewed surveillance footage from the Virginia gas station her sister and brother-in-law always visited during their trips to New York City after a clerk said she thought she had seen the couple.

Conway said she was sure she didn't see them.

“We went frame by frame, Conway said. ”We stayed there the whole night.“

Conway said she and her husband had driven to Myrtle Beach from their home in Brick, N.J., to help support family members as the search continued.