FL--Woman's body 12 years later, 100 yards away
Kris Baker
The body of a Florida woman who vanished on her way to the airport 12 years
ago has been found at the bottom of a lake near her home, police said
Friday.
Gail Schoening of Broward County was a month shy of her 36th birthday when
she disappeared in April 1997 on her way to catch a flight for a job
interview, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.
Schoening's body was found inside her car only about 100 yards from her
front door, Plantation detectives said Friday.
Investigators searched several lakes and other bodies of water in the area
when Schoening vanished, but the proper technology didn't exist at the time
to help counteract poor visibility.
In July, authorities reopened the case and used more advanced equipment to
search water near her apartment. Her body was found Aug. 18 in a lake divers
had scoured before, her mother Arlene Schoening said.
An investigation showed Gail Schoening drove through a narrow space and went
into the water, the Sentinel reported. The car flipped upside-down before
landing at the bottom of the lake.
Schoening's family has spent the last 12 years following leads in her
disappearance.
"We're happy she was found, but sad about the circumstances," Arlene
Schoening, of North Brunswick, N.J., said Friday. "We'd been going through
all the possibilities."
Schoening was recently divorced when she disappeared, according to the
Sentinel. She was on her way to the airport for an interview for a computer
database analyst job in North Carolina
But the 35-year-old never arrived, and her family and police launched a
massive search for her.
A year after she vanished, someone called requesting a PIN number on her
401(k) account in Orlando, raising investigators' suspicions, the Sentinel
said. The lead went nowhere, as did other reported sightings and tips.
Early in the investigation, Schoening's parents believed their daughter may
have driven into a lake or canal because her 1997 Mitsubishi Eclipse was
missing along with her, according to the newspaper.
Despite hiring a pilot to fly over water in the area, the Schoenings never
got their theory confirmed - until now.
"It's hard to deal with a lake that's got a lot of silt and mud in it,"
Plantation police Detective Robert Rettig said Friday. "Visibility was a
problem, but we eventually acquired technology that could help us deal with
that."
Memorial services will be held Christmas week in Florida, where Schoening's
parents plan to move, the Sentinel said.
Linda Griffith
news:7mr6j0F...@mid.individual.net...
> http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Missing-Woman-Found-12-Years-Later-70699127.html
>
> The body of a Florida woman who vanished on her way to the airport 12
> years ago has been found at the bottom of a lake near her home, police
> said Friday.
This report reminded me of the poor woman who disappeared from DFW Airport
in 2001. Her remains were found in 2008, and her death was determined to
have been a homicide. There are more reports at
http://officialcoldcaseinvestigations.com/showthread.php?t=6717
The couple's family had made arrangements for an airline employee to help
them make their connection at DFW. If I hadn't been here and heard about
the case when the woman disappeared, I would've interpreted the "airline
attendant's help" [below] as "flight attendant's help." It was one of those
employees who accompany children flying alone, people in wheelchairs, and
others who need special attention and assistance.
Linda
By ANGELA K. BROWN
Associated Press
Dec. 7, 2008, 6:35PM GRAPEVINE, Texas - After their two-and-a-half-hour
flight, the elderly couple found themselves in the bustling terminal of
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, a whir of scurrying people, food
aromas and festive music.
In a wheelchair after recent hip surgery, Joe Dabney kept a close eye on his
beloved wife of 34 years, nicknamed Margie, who was slipping further into
the grips of Alzheimer's disease.
With an airline attendant's help, the Dabneys slowly made their way through
the massive airport, where about 164,000 passengers pass daily, to their
next gate during the layover on an Indianapolis-to-Los Angeles flight. The
attendant and Joe Dabney entered a restroom, but when they emerged, the
70-year-old woman was nowhere in sight.
Marjorie Dabney had seemingly vanished without a trace from the
third-busiest airport in the world.
Seven years later, long after reward posters faded and police leads went
cold, the mysterious case still haunts her family and challenges law
enforcement. After her remains were found in a field recently, a medical
examiner determined that someone killed the 5-foot-2, 95-pound woman.
"The biggest question is how she got there," said Capt. Kevin Deaver of the
Lewisville Police Department, now handling the investigation. "It's a very
unique situation because it started as a missing persons case and ended up
years later as a homicide."
About an hour after she disappeared on Dec. 5, 2001, the airline notified
airport police and the search expanded to include all terminals,
transportation systems and roads on the 18,000-acre property, said David
Magana, an airport spokesman. He declined to say whether any surveillance
cameras were in the terminals or elsewhere.
The family was baffled but remained hopeful through the years, returning to
the Dallas area to put up new fliers and offer a reward that reached
$100,000. The case gained national attention, but none of the tips it
generated panned out. A woman resembling Dabney was found in Cerritos,
Calif., but her family's hopes were dashed when fingerprints revealed she
was someone else.
Joe Dabney, who lives in Bakersfield, Calif., sued American Airlines for up
to $75 million, settling for an undisclosed amount in 2003. The airline has
declined to comment about Margie Dabney's disappearance or the lawsuit.
Then last month her relatives got shocking news: Skeletal remains found 15
miles from the airport were identified as Dabney's, and the medical examiner
ruled her cause of death as homicide.
The nature of the fractures indicated Dabney was either hit or shot in the
head and did not fall accidentally, said Dr. Mark Krouse of the Tarrant
County Medical Examiner's Office.
"The total circumstances of the case ... show clear and convincing evidence
there is foul play involved," Krouse said.
The remains were found a year ago in a field near Lake Lewisville. They were
identified through DNA evidence after Dabney's bus pass, AARP card and her
American Airlines tag were found nearby in October, Deaver said.
A multicolored sweater and dark pants, apparently what she was wearing when
she disappeared, also were found in the area, Deaver said.
While the investigation has just started, detectives believe it's unlikely
Dabney wandered into the field because of the distance from the airport,
Deaver said. They have no suspects or possible motives so far, he said.
Lewisville detectives also are reviewing evidence from the airport's
investigation, including reports that Dabney was seen wandering on the
tarmac - a claim airport officials say was never substantiated - and walking
on a service road a day or two after she was in the terminal, Deaver said.
There were other reported sightings as far away as Canada.
"It'll be difficult," Deaver said. "As time goes on, any trace evidence left
at the scene is gone, and people's memories fades, so if they saw something
at the scene then that may have been suspicious, they may not remember it
now."
Meanwhile, the family says it continues struggling with the loss - first
with the uncertainty of what happened, and now with knowing that Dabney was
murdered.
Her daughter Candice Price of Indianapolis said that through the years, she
convinced herself that someone found her mother and was caring for her.
After learning that remains were found, Price said, she imagined that her
mother died peacefully after falling into a diabetic coma.
"I'm furious because I'm hearing that someone has killed my mother," Price
said last month. "I want to know why. I want to know when."
JonesieCat
So sad, these cases of sudden disappearances. At least there was a
suggestion from the beginning she maybe had a car accident and went into the
water. So, not a total shock to anyone really. The police department was on
top of it, using the new technology (and not new DNA technology for a
change) to solve this old cold case. Somebody used his/her head.
jc
Kris Baker
"Linda Griffith" <grif...@charter.net> wrote in message
news:wv_Nm.54839$gg6....@newsfe25.iad...
> "Kris Baker" <paralle...@ggmail.com> wrote in message
> news:7mr6j0F...@mid.individual.net...
>> http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Missing-Woman-Found-12-Years-Later-70699127.html
>>
>> The body of a Florida woman who vanished on her way to the airport 12
>> years ago has been found at the bottom of a lake near her home, police
>> said Friday.
>
> This report reminded me of the poor woman who disappeared from DFW Airport
> in 2001. Her remains were found in 2008, and her death was determined to
> have been a homicide. There are more reports at
> http://officialcoldcaseinvestigations.com/showthread.php?t=6717
>
> The couple's family had made arrangements for an airline employee to help
> them make their connection at DFW. If I hadn't been here and heard about
> the case when the woman disappeared, I would've interpreted the "airline
> attendant's help" [below] as "flight attendant's help." It was one of
> those employees who accompany children flying alone, people in
> wheelchairs, and others who need special attention and assistance.
>
> Linda
That's an interesting link....but how do they know, years after the death,
that the head wound occurred prior to her death? Alzheimers patients
are infamous for "sundowning" and wandering......and for taking off their
clothing during stress. (My mother-in-law's mother, deep into Alzheimers,
was found more than once wandering naked, a couple of miles outside
the small Nebraska town she and her husband lived in.)
The reports of seeing someone walking on a runway, and in the area,
in the days after the disappearance, make sense. All she'd had to do
was walk through one of the doors in the concourse, and down the
access stairs.
That's where they should have looked first.
Kris
Michael Snyder
Kris Baker
"comadrejo" <comadr...@mac.com> wrote in message
news:comadrejoagua-341...@news.giganews.com...
> In article <4b088d62$0$2024$742e...@news.sonic.net>,
> Michael Snyder <msn...@sonic.net> wrote:
>
>> So, was this supposed to have been suicide? Accident? Foul play?
>
>> Kris Baker wrote:
>> > http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Missing-Woman-Found-12-Years-Later-7
>> > 0699127.html
>
> it was going to get his meal in the pond/lake, when he saw a poodle, and
> went for that instead. (Delusion off)
>
> It is not a suicide, unless she has the ultimate panic disorder to
> make her kill herself before an job interview. (no suicide note, or
> signs of despondent behavior) The only one to have a motive for a foul
> play is her ex husband, but it doesn't look like it. So by the process
> of elimination and a some Occam's razor: accident... It sounds a bit
> like what happened to those three college students in North Dakota who
> flipped their jeep into a pond.>>
It does seem odd. It's a golf course community with water channels
throughout, where you'd have to wind your way to gated exit. There's
no info about where she went into the water, only that she had to have
driven through a narrow space between two parked cars (maybe she
thought it was a shortcut in a parking lot....and it was dark)?
Kris
jerry warner
earthage
Map of the area. I see a parking area on the right.
http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF8&q=150+Sw+91st+Avenue+Plantation+FL+33324&fb=1&gl=us&hnear=&hl=en&view=map&cid=1206915348466770563&hq=150+Sw+91st+Avenue+Plantation+FL+33324&ll=26.119252,-80.267658&spn=0.002418,0.004474&t=h&z=17
Article from the time of her disappearance. Other reasons for
depression might be a condo that had been on the market for some time,
and if she moved to NC what was going to happen to the relationship
with the boyfriend.
http://www.gazette.net/gazette_archive/1997/199725/montgomery/news/a57971-1.html
Barth received conflicting stories about Gail Schoening's mood before
her disappearance.
"Her boyfriend said she was excited about the job, but her mom said
that she was depressed about being out of work," Barth said.
Barth was uncertain how long Gail Schoening had been unemployed.
She had a history of depression, and the possibility that she may have
harmed herself has not been ruled out, Barth said.
Arlene Schoening said her daughter never completely recovered from the
death of her younger sister when Gail was 18 years old or from
injuries suffered in a car accident that same year.
"Those two things made sure she would be on antidepressants for the
rest of her life," Arlene Schoening said, adding that her daughter
left without taking her medication with her.
Kris Baker
"earthage" <eartha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:03eef486-7cb6-49d4...@k4g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
That makes suicide sound likely, but would someone really drive
into a pond that close to their house.....not knowing how deep it
was?
Apparently, they didn't look too hard in that area. I know it was
under mud, but not at first. Heavy metal detectors would have
turned it up AS WELL AS drops of oil that would have filtered up.
I've been to the USS Arizona memorial, and saw the oil that's
still coming up out of that ship....67 years later. Blip blip blip.
Kris
earthage
It seems like a strange way to commit suicide. Could have been
just a plain accident. Maybe she was just tired.
Schoening said for now her daughter's death is being considered "a
freak accident."
"Everything in her life looked like it was going good," she added.
Gail Schoening, who was 36 at the time of her disappearance, graduated
from North Brunswick High School in 1979, and from Rutgers University
in 1983 with a degree in computer science. The last day she was known
to be alive, she was headed for North Carolina to be interviewed for a
job that was to pay her $75,000.
According to information Arlene Schoenig gave the Home News Tribune
for an obituary, Gail left the the parking lot at her condominium at
about 5 a.m. on April 30, 1997. She was headed to the airport in Fort
Lauderdale for her flight to North Carolina.
The last person known to have talked to her was her boyfriend, who
spoke on the phone with her the night before, according to news
reports in the summer of 1997.
Kris Baker
> In article <7mu3f2F...@mid.individual.net>,
> the open. I doubt she wanted to hide her pain. I always see car into
> lakes and bodies as water as trying to hide evidence, like Scott
> Peterson or Susan Smith.
>
> Because the lake is freshwater, I am even guessing they could find a
> reason why the car went into the lake. Because there weren't known skid
> marks, she probably went into the lake in a gust of speed..
>
> I don't see this other than an accident. She may had anxiety
> problems tied to depression, was frantic in getting to the airport and
> hit the gas or something than the break, or some sort of hypothetical
> scenario...
I see accident, too; it's just that her mother's comments seem to
make it sound otherwise.
It's obvious that some things were overlooked:
--No one noticed oil leaking into the pond/waterway.
--Tire tracks. Not on the pavement, but down through the grass
or brush.
Kris
earthage
http://mobile.sun-sentinel.com/inf/infomo?view=top_stories_item&feed:a=sunsentinel_1min&feed:c=topstories&feed:i=50628267&nopaging=1
Investigators said Gail Schoening drove through a narrow space between
two parked cars and went into the water, Rettig said. The car flipped
upside-down before landing at the bottom of the lake.
==================
How do they know there were two parked cars the day she went into the
water? Maintenance
vehicles that would not be in use early in the morning? Neighbor
tenants that were asked back
in 1997 if they were home that night? It sounds like there had to be
effort made to get through that space.
Parking on the left and right, but maybe it wasn't a parking area.
http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF8&q=150+Sw+91st+Avenue+Plantation+FL+33324&fb=1&gl=us&hnear=&hl=en&view=map&cid=1206915348466770563&hq=150+Sw+91st+Avenue+Plantation+FL+33324&ll=26.119252,-80.267658&spn=0.002418,0.004474&t=h&z=17
Kris Baker
> Kris Baker wrote:
>>
>> I see accident, too; it's just that her mother's comments seem to
>> make it sound otherwise.
>>
>> It's obvious that some things were overlooked:
>> --No one noticed oil leaking into the pond/waterway.
>> --Tire tracks. Not on the pavement, but down through the grass
>> or brush.
>> Kris
>
> http://mobile.sun-sentinel.com/inf/infomo?view=top_stories_item&feed:a=sunsentinel_1min&feed:c=topstories&feed:i=50628267&nopaging=1
> Investigators said Gail Schoening drove through a narrow space between
> two parked cars and went into the water, Rettig said. The car flipped
> upside-down before landing at the bottom of the lake.
>
> ==================
> How do they know there were two parked cars the day she went into the
> water? Maintenance
> vehicles that would not be in use early in the morning? Neighbor
> tenants that were asked back
> in 1997 if they were home that night? It sounds like there had to be
> effort made to get through that space.
>
> Parking on the left and right, but maybe it wasn't a parking area.
> http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF8&q=150+Sw+91st+Avenue+Plantation+FL+33324&fb=1&gl=us&hnear=&hl=en&view=map&cid=1206915348466770563&hq=150+Sw+91st+Avenue+Plantation+FL+33324&ll=26.119252,-80.267658&spn=0.002418,0.004474&t=h&z=17
There's also some parking areas that are pull-ins right outside
townhomes.....and would lead directly into water.
Could they have been assigned parking spaces, which would
explain how they knew she'd driven between two cars to get
to where she'd been found?
http://snurl.com/te6a9 [maps_google_com]
Here's our humorous news-aggregator "coverage" of the day.
Worst. Rewrite. Copyright Violation. Ever.
http://www.dailyworldbuzz.com/gail-schoening-found-in-lake/1702/
JonesieCat
That reads like an article that's been bot-translated into English, except
not that good.
jc
Kris Baker
"JonesieCat" <jonesi...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:xVFOm.57045$ze1....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
> "Kris Baker" <paralle...@ggmail.com> wrote in message
> news:7n0dgtF...@mid.individual.net...
>>
>>
>> Worst. Rewrite. Copyright Violation. Ever.
>> http://www.dailyworldbuzz.com/gail-schoening-found-in-lake/1702/
>
> That reads like an article that's been bot-translated into English, except
> not that good.
> jc
I think it's an experimental bot that scans common stories and
attempts to create "news" from them.
Just another occupation the 'net is killing: journalism. The
aggregators steal the work of those who are paying to collect
the stories, use idiot "affiliates" to rewrite the stories, then
publish them as legitimate news coverage. ie, examiner.com
Kris