KISSIMMEE, Fla. – The body of a woman who went missing 12 years ago appears to have been found in a minivan submerged in a central Florida retention pond near Walt Disney World, according to family members and volunteer divers who discovered the remains last week.
The family of Sandra Lemire told local media on Tuesday that they believe that the remains found in the vehicle are the central Florida woman who vanished along with her car in 2012 after leaving a restaurant in Kissimmee, Florida.
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Divers with Sunshine State Sonar found the vehicle last Saturday while searching in a small retention pond at the Disney World exit on Interstate 4 in Kissimmee. The group of volunteer divers assists law enforcement in finding missing persons, vehicles or vessels believed to be in Florida waterways. They had been searching for Lemire in 63 bodies of water over the last year and a half.
A video the group posted to its Facebook page showed diver Mike Sullivan resurfacing in the retention pond, pushing up his diving mask and pumping his fist in the air. "We got her! We got her!" he said.
“Deep in my heart. I always thought this was a foul play case, and it turned out to be just a bad, terrible car accident,” Sullivan later told WESH in Orlando. “I’m just so proud of our team.”
It is not uncommon in Florida for people to vanish and have their remains found in submerged vehicles years later, given the state’s numerous retention ponds, rivers, lakes and canals, as well as Florida's large numbers of out-of-state visitors who may not be familiar with the terrain. Last September, the remains of an Alabama man were found in a river in Dixie County, Florida, 28 years after he vanished. In 2015, the remains of a young teenage couple were found in a South Florida canal, 37 years after they went missing.
Last week, a tip from an Orlando Police Department detective about the location of a cellphone tower that last received a call from Lemire’s phone helped the divers narrow the search to the retention pond, the group said in a statement on social media.
“We located what appeared to be a minivan submerged in 14 feet of water,” the statement said. “Our team quickly suited up and dove on the vehicle to make the license plate confirmation.”
In a statement to Spectrum News in Orlando, Lemire’s son, Timothy Lemire, said he never lost hope about finding his mother.
“You just can’t lose hope and I almost did,” Timothy Lemire said Tuesday. “But the Sunshine State Sonar did an amazing job solving this case. Without them, none of this would have been possible.”
The medical examiner's office in Orlando still needs to confirm the identity of the remains. The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating the cause of the crash.