Car tied to wealthy NY couple missing for 44 years pulled from murky pond

A affluent New York mates vanished without a hint in Georgia 44 years ago, but it appears it took a brace of unpaid divers conscionable 7 minutes to observe what are apt their car and remains submerged successful a murky pond adjacent a edifice they had been staying in.

Retired lipid enforcement Charles Romer, 73, and his woman Catherine, 75, disappeared with their 1978 Lincoln successful the outpouring of 1980. The Scarsdale, New York, mates were returning location from Miami Beach, Florida, and checked into a Holiday Inn successful Brunswick. 

Hotel employees were acrophobic that their furniture had not been slept successful and reported them missing. Fears were raised that the couple, known to transportation costly jewelry, had been victims of foul play and robbed. 

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Charles and Catherine Romer are seen successful the apical close on with photos of their purported car and divers extracting pieces.

The edifice is situated adjacent to a pond which, diver Mike Sullivan tells Fox News Digital, had been searched galore times before, but unspeakable visibility had hitherto prevented searchers from making a breakthrough. 

But the cold case abruptly heated up connected Friday erstwhile Sullivan and his brother, John Martin, searched the pond successful their tiny 6-foot-long vessel and their specialized sonar instrumentality pinged a conveyance astatine the bottommost of the pond. 

Sullivan says helium rapidly dived to the bottommost of the water and pulled the chemoreceptor from a 1978 Lincoln. He says quality remains and a spate of jewelry were besides recovered successful the car.

"We got to the pond astatine astir 10 a.m. successful the greeting and we recovered the car by 10:07 a.m., 7 minutes later," Sullivan says. 

The pair, who run Sunshine State Sonar, a Florida-based unpaid hunt and rescue organization, past called the police, who arrived connected the scene. 

The submerged Lincoln arsenic the pond is drained.  (Sunshine State Sonar)

The Glynn County Police Department and the Camden County Dive Team past tried to propulsion the Lincoln from the h2o and successful doing so, spun the car astir and ripped the axle disconnected the car, video provided by Sullivan shows.

He says constabulary past drained the pond to uncover the severely deteriorated car.

"The conveyance is akin to the statement of a conveyance that Charles and Catherine Romer were believed to beryllium driving erstwhile reported missing successful April, 1980," Glynn County Police Department said successful a statement. "At this clip determination is nary decision astir the individuality of the remains that were found."

Police did not accidental what happened to the car oregon the radical recovered inside.

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The backmost spot of the car they discovered had the initials "C.R.R" embroidered, left, and an axle with a wheel, right. (Sunshine State Sonar)

Sullivan is convinced the remains are those of the mates and believes that they whitethorn person inadvertently reversed into the pond portion trying to parkland and drowned successful a tragic accident. 

Sullivan says that the couple’s Lincoln was custom-made and the backmost spot of the car they discovered had their initials "C.R.R" embroidered.

The Romer’s checked into the Holiday Inn on Interstate 95 and U.S. 341 conscionable earlier 4 p.m. connected April 8, 1980, and took their belongings to their room. At astir 5 p.m., a Georgia Highway Patrol serviceman saw the couple's car southbound of Brunswick adjacent immoderate restaurants and neither the Romer’s nor their car was seen again. 

"It looks arsenic if they were parking astatine the diner and helium accidentally stepped connected the state pedal erstwhile helium was parking and they backed into the lake," Sullivan says. "He indispensable person had the car successful reverse, and helium stepped connected the state due to the fact that the headlights are facing the shore. He backed into the water accidentally."

Sullivan says police recovered diamonds worthy tens of thousands of dollars wrapped successful the carpet of the trunk.

"We besides recovered a diamond ring, necklace, a golden purse, a golden diamond purse. We besides recovered worldly with their initials connected it and stuff," helium says.

The closeness of the pond to the edifice and the magnitude of clip it has taken to marque a breakthrough successful the lawsuit has raised questions arsenic to wherefore a find was not made earlier.

"The pond has been checked many, galore times passim the years due to the fact that it was virtually a 100 yards from their edifice room. The occupation is the sonar exertion was not disposable backmost successful 1980," Sullivan says. 

"Divers would spell successful the pond and aquatics astir and consciousness for the car but with zero visibility it is precise hard to find a car doing that. Sometimes you get lucky, it's precise difficult. But they tried, you know, they astir apt came wrong feet of the car but conscionable didn't find it."

Sullivan says they were initially called to the country astir a extremity astir a Ford sedan which had reportedly gone into the water. He says nary bodies were recovered adjacent that vehicle. 

He says that the enactment of Sunshine State Sonar is done for free.

"Nobody hires us. We enactment with instrumentality enforcement agencies connected acold cases and we instrumentality these cases connected for free, pro bono," Sullivan says. "We specialize successful underwater sonar and we are besides a dive team."

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Divers successful the h2o astatine the scene. (Sunshine State Sonar)

"We person a database of each cases of radical missing with their vehicles. These are circumstantial types of missing persons cases wherever the victim's conveyance has ne'er been recovered. And truthful what we bash is we spell to the country of their past known whereabouts and we hunt each the h2o wherever these radical were past known to be."

"And the crushed we were astatine that pond is due to the fact that that is the pond successful beforehand of the edifice that they were staying at."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.