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A mother's remains are found in a pond
Our cold case database is in danger of no longer being maintained.
In 2012, Sandra moved to Florida to live with and take care of her grandmother. While there, she was communicating with a few people through an online dating service.
On May 8, 2012, Sandra was last seen by her family.
Sandra drove to Kissimmee, a city just south of Orlando, to meet a man at a Denny’s restaurant for a date. Video surveillance shows that she was there with the man for about two hours, before leaving.
Sandra called her grandmother to confirm that she arrived at Kissimmee, but did not call again as she had promised during her drive back home.
After Sandra failed to come home, and missed a few doses of insulin, her family reported her as missing.
Then, Sunshine State Sonar teamed up with the Orlando Police Detectives.
They’ve searched a total of 63 bodies of water over the last 17 months, looking for missing people. Then, detectives got new information from Sandra’s last cell phone record data. That helped the team pin-point a location to check.
"We located what appeared to be a minivan submerged in 14 feet of water. Our team quickly suited up and dove on the vehicle to make the license plate confirmation," Sunshine State Sonar wrote on Facebook. "Our hearts go out to her family who supported us along the way we are saddened at the circumstances, but glad we could assist in bringing her home. Rest in peace Sandra, you are finally home."
While an investigation is ongoing, it appears that Sandra was driving a bit too quickly on the exit ramp, and drove right into the pond.
“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,” Mike Sullivan, who lead the volunteer dive group, said. “I'm just so proud of our team.”
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