It’s been greater than 22 years since Mary Lou Combs went lacking in Flagler Seaside, Florida, however because of a crew of veteran volunteers, it seems her stays have lastly been discovered.
Combs, 41 years outdated on the time, hadn’t been seen since driving from the house she typically shared together with her mom and youngsters on Aug. 19, 2003. Concern about her whereabouts grew after she didn’t get her paycheck at a Meals Lion grocery store in Flagler Seaside and didn’t present up for her daughter’s birthday shortly after.
Combs grew to become a lacking individual, and her baffling case went chilly for greater than 20 years – till now.
In February, a crew of volunteer divers recovered the pink automobile Combs had been final seen driving deeply submerged within the Intracoastal Waterway alongside 18th Highway in Flagler County. Contained in the car have been a number of private objects, together with kids’s toys, primarily based on a report from the Flagler County Sheriff’s Workplace.
Marine Corps veteran Ken Fleming, a member of the Recon Dive Restoration crew, labored with Navy submarine veteran Vern Shurtz to recuperate Combs’ stays.
“It was simply fantastic to carry her again and be capable of name this a solved case,” Fleming informed First Coast News.
How They Did It
Fleming and Shurtz, who runs the Helo & Sub diving crew, have been notified of the Combs case two years in the past by Sarah Scalia, a Flagler chilly case detective. Using side-scan sonar, Fleming and Schurtz spent the previous couple of years looking in additional than 300 our bodies of water between Combs’ home to the shop the place she labored, together with adjoining roadways and neighborhoods.
After an exhaustive search, final October supplied a small breakthrough. The divers discovered automobile components, a spring and bumper, that matched Combs’ 1996 Dodge Neon within the Intracoastal Waterway. It was a small glimmer of hope that saved the veterans looking.
“Since Oct. 29, we’ve had one mantra,” Fleming stated. “Vern and I’d have a look at one another and say, ‘One bone, one bone.’ We simply want one bone for DNA. We have to show that that is her, that she’s within the car.”
Combs’ case drew the eye of each the Federal Bureau of Investigations Underwater Search and Proof Response Workforce in Miami and the Jacksonville Proof Response Workforce. On Feb. 3, Nationwide Lacking Individuals Day, each teams teamed with Fleming and Shurtz, together with Flagler County deputies, on a three-day mission to attempt to recuperate Combs’ stays. Even when they discovered the car, there was no assure any a part of her physique would nonetheless be in or close to the automobile.
Coming into the overturned, decomposed car through a damaged driver’s aspect window, the divers dredged and sucked up mud and particles into buckets on shore.
It didn’t take lengthy to search out what they have been trying to find. Inside hours, divers recovered a pelvic bone within the automobile.
“At that time limit, everyone knew that, sure, we’re right here and we’re having a restoration, and we’re going to have the ability to carry somebody’s beloved one residence,” Shurtz stated.
In addition to discovering extra automobile components, investigators found Combs’ Florida driver’s license, a dimension 7 shoe that matched her shoe dimension, bones with a metallic plate intact from an ankle surgical procedure, toys and a baby’s seat that Natasha Harper, Combs’ daughter, stated belong to her.
Shurtz stated all organizations working collectively made the restoration potential.
“Everyone was decided to do all that they might to carry the stays of Mary Lou Combs residence,” he stated. “It was probably the most spectacular issues I’ve ever seen.”
Mired in murky saltwater and muck for 22 years, the Dodge Neon was terribly corroded, including one other problem for divers.
“If you contact the metallic, it simply disintegrated into paper, and we realized we have been going to want a special tactic,” Fleming stated. “Nobody would have thought that automobile may have gone 180 toes upstream within the present. It’s modified the best way we have a look at circumstances; you must go above and past the conventional search sample.”
DNA Should Verify It
Whereas the boatload of bodily proof “strongly suggests” the stays are Combs,’ Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly stated the county medical expert’s findings, together with DNA evaluation, will make the ultimate dedication.
Based mostly on proof, Staly stated it’s potential Combs drove off the roadway by chance, plunging into the Intracoastal close to the tip of 18th Highway, nevertheless the investigation is ongoing.
Whereas the findings are nonetheless not 100% concrete, the proof offers some aid for Combs’ household.
“We’re eternally grateful that we will lastly say goodbye,” Harper stated at a press convention. “Thanks to everybody that has performed a component on this blessing. Could our mom relaxation in paradise.”
Help Wanted
The Combs’ investigation is the seventh chilly case Fleming and Shurtz have helped shut. Whereas their volunteer work is unpaid, each see it as a mission to assist grieving households whereas persevering with their dedication to service.
“Grief is love despatched with no vacation spot,” Fleming stated. “We prefer to carry that residence.”
By way of neighborhood help and donations, Fleming and Shurtz can maintain doing what they love, however with extra households asking for assist, funding is required.
“We’re self-funded, we’re broke,” Fleming stated. “We’re doing this out of our personal grocery cash on a regular basis. I’ve received 5 households that need us to come back to their jurisdictions proper now. We’ve to repair our gear earlier than we will gasoline up and go to the subsequent one, so if they might help us, that will be unimaginable.”
