A New York woman whose grandparents went missing 44 years ago said on Friday their disappearance haunted her for decades, but the recent discovery of what could be their car submerged in a Georgia pond has her family believing the mystery may soon be solved.
“I never went a day without worrying or thinking about if they had a terrible ending to their life,” Christine Heller Seaman, 60, of Manhattan, said about her grandmother Catherine Romer, who was married to Charles Romer. The couple was reported missing in April 1980.
“For years and years, we didn’t hear anything. … It’s something that you held with you every single day of your life … if they were tortured or harmed,” Seaman told NBC News on Friday in a phone call.
Charles Romer, a retired oil executive, and his wife, vanished along with their 1978 Lincoln Continental while traveling home from Miami Beach, Florida. At the time, law enforcement expressed concerns about potential foul play against the couple from Scarsdale, New York, partly because Catherine Romer was wearing approximately $81,000 worth of jewelry.
They had checked into a Holiday Inn in Brunswick, Georgia, where hotel employees grew concerned that their bed had not been slept in and reported them missing.
But decades later, answers appear to be emerging from a Georgia pond.
One human bone was discovered in the submerged Lincoln Continental on Nov. 22, according to a Saturday statement from the Glynn County Police Department.
“The vehicle is similar to the description of a vehicle that Charles and Catherine Romer were believed to be driving,” the police department said in the statement posted to Facebook.
The car was found in a pond between the Royal Inn Hotel and Interstate 95 on New Jesup Highway in southeast Georgia, police said, adding that the agency is collaborating with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Seaman said a detective informed her family that along with a femur found in the Continental, personal belongings such as jewelry and a license plate bearing the couple’s initials were also discovered in the car.
Lawton Dodd, a spokesperson for Glynn County police, said on Friday the human remains have not been identified as belonging to either of the Romers, and the vehicle has not been determined to belong to the couple. Dodd declined to elaborate.
‘A happy time’
Although a positive identification or identifications are not expected for months, Seaman said the developments have led her family to believe the couple died in some kind of accident rather than falling victim to a vicious crime.
Seaman, who spoke from Scotland, said she and her family enjoyed Thanksgiving and reminisced about their missing relatives.
“The whole family just shared stories about them. It was a happy time because of this resolve we’re feeling,” Seaman said. “It sort of gave us permission to celebrate their lives and talk about the fun memories without the feeling of dread, sorrow and sadness.”
Seaman said she was only 15 when her grandmother and her step-grandfather — Charles was Catherine’s second husband — vanished.
She still remembers the look on her dad’s face after he spoke to a detective in Georgia who told them the couple was missing.
“We saw his face and he said, ‘Something is very, very wrong.’” Seaman explained that her father was his mother’s only child and he had not heard from her, which was unusual.
Seaman described her grandmother as the “life of the party” who was very close to Seaman and her eight sisters. Catherine Romer loved thoroughbred racing and enjoyed traveling with her granddaughters, introducing them to new foods and restaurants, Seaman said.
“She was like the celebrity of our house. She was always visiting us. She was very much part of our upbringing,” she said. “She made everyone feel like her favorite child — her favorite granddaughter.”
Seaman called Charles Romer a “lovely and generous man.”
She expressed gratitude toward investigators and a diving team from Florida, the Sunshine State Sonar team, that found the submerged Continental.
“We’re all in shock, but … we have this gratitude for the people that hunted this whole mystery down,” Seaman said. “People who don’t know us and we’re not related to and are perfect strangers would go to extensive measures to find answers and … help give a family peace of mind and resolve.”
