A New York woman is breathing a slight sigh of relief after a 44-year-old family mystery is finally unraveling after police discovered a clue in a case that’s gone cold for decades.
Christine Heller Seaman, 60, from Manhattan, has been haunted for decades by the disappearance of her grandparents until police confirmed that the human remains found at the bottom of a pond in Georgia two weeks ago are those of Charles and Catherine Romer.
Seaman expressed her relief in a phone call with NBC: “I never went a day without worrying or thinking about if they had a terrible ending to their life.”
Every twist in search for missing Hannah Kobayashi – from cryptic texts to dads death
“For years and years, we didnt hear anything. Its something that you held with you every single day of your life if they were tortured or harmed,” Seaman recounted.
The mystery surrounding Charles Romer, a retired oil executive, and his wife’s disappearance deepens as their 1978 Lincoln Continental was discovered submerged along with the couple who went missing while returning home from Miami Beach, Florida.
The mystery of the couple’s disappearance begins all the way back to April 1980 when the Romer’s resided in Scarsdale, New York. Their disappearance had baffled investigators for over four decades before the discovery of the remains on Monday.
“All the investigations and psychics and everything, the police, they worked so hard, and Blackwater divers have been searching for years. And they thought it was foul play,” Christine Seaman Heller, granddaughter of the missing woman told ABC 7 Eyewitness News.
Seaman-Heller learned that clues to solving the disappearance may lie at the bottom of a retention pond off Interstate 95 in Georgia.
A dive team discovered the deteriorating remains of a 1979 Lincoln Continental in the Georgia pond last Friday, the same vehicle Seaman-Heller’s grandmother Catherine, and her husband Charles, were driving when they disappeared.
Investigators with the Glynn County Police Department were able to find human bones inside the vehicle and officials with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation were able to help drain the pond to help search for additional remains.
“The rust, corrosion, all kinds of bacteria is gonna develop on that car. And in trying to clean that stuff to see if you can find something…it’s going to be difficult,” Ken Jefferson, a crime and safety expert, told ABC 7.
Catherine and Charles Romer were friends who married a few years after they met after both becoming widows. Seaman-Heller told ABC 7 that her father, Catherine’s son, spent years traveling to Georgia in search of answers as to what happened to his mother and Charles.
“That was all we were consumed about until, you know, today,” Seaman Heller said. “I was talking about it yesterday with a friend of mine because it’s always been such a mystery. So, it would be so wonderful to find out, just have some peace. You know maybe it wasn’t a horrible ending, maybe it was just an accident.”
The facts that investigators were able to piece together a timeline of the couple’s last movements before their disappearance, ABC 7 reports. The couple were reportedly returning to New York from a vacation in Miami when they checked into the Brunswick Holiday Inn, which is now called the Royal Inn.
The pond where the car and remains were found was next to where the Romers stayed. The day after their disappearance, housekeeping at the hotel found the couple’s belongings inside the room but no sign of the couple.
One of the divers who made the discovery on Friday told local media that it was possible that the car was accidentally put into reverse and rolled into the pond, adding to the theory that this was a tragic accident.
“I just hope it’s gonna bring whatever happens, however, it plays out, it brings closure for the family,” Andy Mavermat, former Holiday Inn manager, told ABC 7.