The skeletal remains of a teenage girl discovered tied to a Florida mangrove with wire in 1974 have been identified as another victim of renowned cop serial killer Gerard Schaefer.
Susan Poole, a 15-year-old high school dropout, was reported missing by her family shortly before Christmas in 1972.
Skeletal remains were discovered bound to a tree with wire two years later, but they remained unidentified for 48 years.
Police believe they are Poole’s now, according to genetic ancestry research, and that she was another of Schaefer’s victims.
After being convicted of the murders of two young children, Schaefer died in jail in 1995.
Prosecutors regarded him as one of the most ruthless serial killers they had ever encountered, suspecting him in the deaths of up to 26 young girls.
I’d never seen someone more sexually perverse than [him]. ‘He made Ted Bundy look like a Boy Scout,’ said Robert Stone, Schaefer’s prosecutor.
Poole had been living in a trailer park near Fort Lauderdale with her family and with a friend in a nearby apartment at the time of her disappearance, according to Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Detective William Springer.
‘No one knew where she went,’ he added, pointing out that her clothes and wallet were left at a friend’s place.
Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to a distant spot in Palm Beach County in June 1974.
‘She was tethered to a tree in the mangroves,’ Springer added. ‘She was skeletal remains, with nothing left of her except bones,’ says the narrator.
Detectives back then didn’t have the DNA capabilities that we have now, so the case rapidly went cold, he added.
Officers even released a computer composite of Poole from today’s perspective in the hopes that she might still be alive.
Investigators submitted DNA to a national missing people database in 2015, but no matches were found.
Then, in December, Othram, a Texas-based forensics company that uses genealogy to construct DNA profiles, contacted the sheriff’s office and claimed they might be able to assist in the investigation of cold cases.
The names of the victims were released by the firm in March.
Now Springer is looking for evidence that connects Poole to Gerard Schaefer, a serial killer who was fatally stabbed by a fellow inmate at the Florida State Prison in 1995.
Schaffer had been a police officer in Wilton Manors, a Fort Lauderdale suburb, and was a deputy with the Martin County Sheriff’s Office at the time Poole disappeared, Springer said.
Schaefer was found guilty of murdering two other girls, ages 16 and 17, who lived near Fort Lauderdale.
Their mutilated and decapitated remains were found in April 1973 in Martin County.
Because of a US Supreme Court ruling, Florida did not have a death penalty in the early 1970s and Schaefer was sentenced to life in prison.
Because of the similar way in which those teens were killed, Springer said he believes Schaefer could have been involved in Poole’s death. Authorities say Schaefer was implicated in up to 30 deaths.
Investigators are hoping to speak to several friends who lived near Poole when she disappeared and could possibly fill in some blanks about her activities during that time.
Springer wants to know if she frequently hitchhiked or whether she had ever confided in them about any kind of relationship with Schaeffer.
For Poole’s mother, who is in her 90s, and siblings, the news has brought some closure, Springer said.
‘The family was happy to know what happened,’ he said. ‘It’s been a long time waiting to see what happened to their sister.’