Human remains found 44 years after New York couple vanished as submerged car discovered

Human remains have been found 44 years after a couple from New York vanished.

A submerged car was discovered in a pond last week along the Interstate 95 in south Georgia, with two sets of skeletal remains said to be inside.

Police suspect they could belong to retired oil executive Charles Romer, 73, and his wife Catherine, 75, who vanished in their 1978 Lincoln Continental decades ago.

But the Camden County Sheriff’s Office stressed tests hadn’t confirmed any identities yet.

The couple were returning home from a holiday in Florida, and had checked into the nearby Holiday Inn, in Brunswick, Georgia, but hotel staff grew concerned when their bed hadn’t been slept in and reported them missing.

The last time they were seen was by a local officer who saw their car at some nearby restaurants.

At the time of the disappearance, officers expressed concern of criminal activity as Ms Romer was wearing around $81,000 (£64,000) of jewellery.

One theory was that they had been robbed.

“We all felt with our experience that these people had been kidnapped and killed for her jewellery, and the vehicle and the bodies were hidden in the water,” rescue diver George Baker, who searched for the car over the years, said in 1998.

However, the New York Post reported that, amid the salvage efforts, a Rolex watch, diamond ring and other items of jewellery were found, suggesting the disappearance might have been an accident.

For years the case remained unsolved, until recently when Sunshine State Sonar – a not-for-profit volunteer search team – discovered the vehicle.

It matched the description of the one driven by the couple.

The pond is now being drained, local police said, and DNA tests conducted as the car and its contents are recovered.

The sonar group initially attended the pond on a tip-off regarding a separate vehicle, before finding what is believed to be the couple’s car and two sets of skeletal remains, they said.