Action News Jax spoke to members of the dive team that found a car submerged in a local pond with human remains inside.
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We reported this weekend the remains could belong to a New York couple that disappeared in the 80s.
A tip from a sonar team based in the Carolinas, working on the Romer case, led the Sunshine State Sonar team to this location. The team believed they had found the vehicle the Romers were last seen driving before checking into the Royal Inn on April 8th, 1980.
“When you have a vehicle in front of a pond at the hotel where they went missing, that’s something that needs to be taken care of,” Co-Founder, Sunshine State Sonar - John Martin said.
John Martin and his team with Sunshine State Sonar dove into the pond in Brunswick on Friday night, relying on their instincts as they searched by feel in the dark water.
“I grabbed the biggest object off that seat, came to the surface, and sure enough, I had a femur bone in my hand. That’s when we stopped. This was a crime scene,” Martin said.
The team then recovered multiple personal items from the car, including jewelry and even a pair of women’s shoes.
“This was a custom-made Lincoln Continental, so a piece of the backseat had the initials engraved in the backseat,” Martin said.
Rumors of bodies being hidden in the pond had circulated for decades among former guests of the Royal Inn, which it’s behind the pond. Many now said those rumors were true.
“To be bodies back there is just crazy,” a former hotel guest said.
“I didn’t believe it when they first told me, and now that it’s popping off, it is madness,” another former Hotel Guest said.
Charles and Catherine Romer were a wealthy new couple, traveling through southern Georgia. They disappeared on April 8, 1980, and were never heard from again.
Despite a previous search of the pond after the Romers’ disappearance, Martin believes authorities at the time didn’t have the proper equipment to fully search the area.
Since its founding in 2022, Sunshine State Sonar has helped solve several cold cases.
“We have solved 12 cases in a brought 14 missing people home in those 12 cases, Martin said.
The investigation is ongoing, but this discovery brings the hope of finally solving a case that has haunted Brunswick, Georgia for over four decades.
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