DICKINSON, N.D. (AP) — The bodies of three missing North Dakota college softball players were found Tuesday inside a Jeep after authorities, aided by signals from the women's last desperate phone calls, spotted the vehicle submerged in a farm pond.

Police Lt. Rod Banyai said officers were investigating the cause of the deaths and autopsies were planned. He said he believed the women were on a stargazing trip in the Jeep when they called for help, but he did not know whether it already was under water when the calls were made.

"At this time, foul play is not suspected," Banyai said Tuesday night. Investigators were working to determine whether the vehicle had any defects or whether alcohol was involved, he said.

Authorities had searched since late Sunday night for Kyrstin Gemar, 22, of San Diego; Afton Williamson, 20, of Lake Elsinore, Calif.; and Ashley Neufeld, 21, of Brandon, Manitoba.

The Dickinson State University students were believed to be in the white 1997 Jeep Cherokee with California plates when two of their friends received telephone calls before the lines went dead. Police described the first as a "very scratchy" call for help in which one of the women said they were near a lake and water.

Banyai said the 12-foot-deep pond where the women were found is a couple miles off a road on a farm northwest of Dickinson, a city of 16,000 people about 100 miles west of Bismarck and 60 miles east of the Montana state line.

He said "pings" — signals sent from a cell phone to a provider tower, or vice versa — from the women's phone calls helped narrow the search area. Searchers on foot found vehicle tracks leading into the pond Tuesday afternoon.

"After that was located, the plane flew over the top and it could see that there was a white object in the water," Banyai said. The submerged vehicle was pulled from the pond about two hours later.