A human bone found inside a car at the bottom of a Georgia pond could offer insight into the disappearance of Charles and Catherine Romer, a wealthy New York couple who vanished more than four decades ago.
Divers with the Florida-based Sunshine State Sonar Team discovered the submerged Lincoln Continental over the weekend in a retention pond near Interstate 95 in Brunswick, the Glynn County Police Department said.
The spot isn’t far from the Royal Inn — the last place 73-year-old Charles Romer, a retired Sinclair Oil executive, and his 75-year-old wife, Catherine, were seen alive.
The couple had been on their way home to Scarsdale after a vacation in Miami when they stopped at the hotel, then a Holiday Inn, on April 8, 1980, according to LoHud. Staff there became concerned when a maid discovered their luggage still inside their room and their bed untouched.
Hotel employees alerted authorities, who then scoured the room for clues. While they didn’t uncover any evidence of foul play, they didn’t rule it out either.
Catherine Romer was wearing about $81,000 worth of jewelry at the time, and police have speculated the pair were targeted by thieves as a result. That’s one of many theories that have been floated about their disappearance, a mystery authorities have been struggling to solve for more than 44 years.
Law enforcement finally got a potential break in the case over the weekend, when the rusted Lincoln Continental was discovered.
The Glynn County Police Department said the Lincoln “is similar to the description of a vehicle that Charles and Catherine Romer were believed to be driving when reported missing,” though they have yet to confirm it belongs to the missing couple.
“Ultimately a match must be determined by the VIN number and it has not been possible yet to get that from the vehicle found in the pond,” a department spokesperson told CNN on Tuesday.
Inside the Lincoln, divers discovered a human bone, which had not been identified as of Tuesday. Police said they plan to drain the pond in the coming days so they can more easily search for any additional remains.
It’s unclear whether the pond was searched in the years since the Romers’ disappearance.
“All the investigations and psychics and everything, the police, they worked so hard,” Christine Seaman Heller, one of Catherine Romer’s granddaughters, told WABC.
Now, it seems like the Sunshine State Sonar Team could be the ones responsible for cracking the case. A volunteer organization, their “mission is to find missing persons, vehicles or vessels believed to be in waterways” with the hopes of resolving cold cases, according to the group’s website.
In a Facebook post on Monday, Sunshine State Sonar said it was acting on a tip when they discovered two vehicles in the pond, both of which were reported to authorities. First, they found a 1970s Ford sedan, and further investigation turned up the Lincoln.