A Place on the Sand

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Speaker 9 It'd always been her lifelong dream to have her own resort.

Speaker 11 Welcome to 80s Marquette.

Speaker 13 She wasn't answering her phone. He couldn't find her.

Speaker 14 There was a buzz in the air. Sabine's gone.

Speaker 14 There were two women at the airport, and they were sure that they saw her in line to get onto an airplane.

Speaker 15 She could have gone back to Germany to see her family.

Speaker 16 Right.

Speaker 17 Typically, in any missing person case, you look at the inner circle first, husband, paramour.

Speaker 19 If she's declared dead, he gets a lot of insurance money. The motel.

Speaker 17 Correct.

Speaker 20 The man was very charismatic, dropped dead gorgeous.

Speaker 21 What made you think that he was the guy who would have killed her?

Speaker 22 I mean, they were going out together.

Speaker 13 We knew they had had an argument that day.

Speaker 23 Why would that place burn down?

Speaker 21 Somebody was trying to destroy some evidence?

Speaker 13 We just didn't know.

Speaker 24 This is a murder mystery of epic proportions.

Speaker 17 Both of us were obsessed with this case.

Speaker 14 I'm sure my mouth was hanging open. Can this get any more bizarre?

Speaker 25 There is a little island, its own bit of fantasy, off the Gulf Coast of Florida.

Speaker 2 It's kind of a little paradise here.

Speaker 28 It is paradise, and it just gets better and better, we think.

Speaker 5 Ana Maria Island, where high-rise condos are banned, is seven miles of unspoiled white sand, unspoiled houses, unspoiled people, too, most of them.

Speaker 9 When you come across the bridge, it's a whole different life. I mean,

Speaker 9 you just come across the bridge and it's like, ah, it is.

Speaker 27 I'm here. Yeah.

Speaker 31 And here is where she found her little paradise, too.

Speaker 33 Came all the way from Germany for it.

Speaker 34 Sabina Musel Buehler.

Speaker 25 And whether they called her Sabina or, as some did, Sabine, they all knew her here on the island.

Speaker 16 She's a larger-than-life person.

Speaker 9 Absolutely. And the minute you met her,

Speaker 9 you just were drawn to her. I mean, she was just one of those people that you wanted to get to know better.

Speaker 38 And even now, looking back on what happened to Sabina on the awful mystery, it just doesn't seem possible.

Speaker 10 Not here.

Speaker 28 I mean, nothing happens on this island. It's a sleepy little island.
It's a sweet town. We don't have things like that to happen here.

Speaker 15 No, and certainly not to her.

Speaker 39 Sabina made good things happen here, crazy things, happy things.

Speaker 15 Here at the 50s motel, she bought and reimagined, along with Tom Bueller, the man she married within two weeks of meeting, her partner at Haley's Motel,

Speaker 31 longtime friends Nancy Ambrose and Susie Fawkes.

Speaker 9 It had always been her lifelong dream to have her own resort.

Speaker 9 And Haley's came on the market. And at the time it was

Speaker 27 pretty run down.

Speaker 9 And we were like, oh, that now that's, you've got your hands full here, but she knew that Tom could do it. I mean, if anybody could do it, the two of them could turn this around.

Speaker 27 Oh, and they did.

Speaker 29 Tom did the fixing.

Speaker 37 Sabina had the ideas.

Speaker 36 They invited the whole town to their quirky events, their dress-up parties.

Speaker 11 Hello.

Speaker 11 Welcome to Hailey's Motel.

Speaker 11 Please join me for a tour.

Speaker 46 This is her with Giacomo, her ever-present parrot.

Speaker 25 Sabina was the star of her own promotional videos for the motel.

Speaker 11 Well, I hope you liked our room so far, but with all the activities we offer you, you won't spend too much time in there.

Speaker 1 Neighbor Barbara Hines.

Speaker 20 Sabina never saw something that had a broken wing that she didn't try to fix.

Speaker 36 Sabina was a rescuer.

Speaker 27 People, cats, dogs, turtles.

Speaker 49 When Susie Fox took over the Anna Maria Turtle Watch, nesting turtles are a very big deal here.

Speaker 2 She asked for help.

Speaker 28 Ben Tom and Sabine were, I think, my fourth volunteers. And there's nine sections on this island one mile long, and they said they'd take as many as I needed to give them.

Speaker 42 I watched her with a huge leatherback in the water.

Speaker 33 Bonner Joy owns the local newspaper, The Islander.

Speaker 42 Unfortunately, the leatherback was missing a flipper, and he just, he swam in circles, so he kept coming back to the beach.

Speaker 42 And Sabine jumped in the water without a second thought.

Speaker 42 And she was up to here talking to the turtle's face like she could tell this 400-pound turtle to turn around, you know, but, or will him to.

Speaker 27 So you get the idea.

Speaker 9 She was just amazing. I mean, she just was one of those people that cared about everybody.

Speaker 46 Like Nancy Ambrose, for example, when she was battling cancer and nobody would give her a job because of her demanding treatment schedule.

Speaker 41 Until the day she met Sabina.

Speaker 9 You know, I explained what my situation was.

Speaker 51 She's like, great,

Speaker 9 that's fine.

Speaker 9 Come on, come on to break. And I was like, really?

Speaker 9 That was one of the happiest days of my life because here she was giving me a chance.

Speaker 36 So, Sabina had passions.

Speaker 39 Animals, her motel, her white Pontiac convertible, and in 2008, a new passion.

Speaker 24 Campaigning for Barack Obama.

Speaker 43 An uphill battle on this predominantly Republican island.

Speaker 2 So on election night, Sabina was certainly up for a party.

Speaker 43 She'd arranged to meet Nancy, in fact, in what they hoped would turn into a victory celebration.

Speaker 9 She was so into the election. She was so excited.
She wanted Obama to win.

Speaker 6 Strange then, that when Nancy arrived, she couldn't find Sabina.

Speaker 9 And I thought she had already left because I got there late.

Speaker 25 Sabina's husband, Tom, had been there earlier, too, but without her.

Speaker 5 Still, Nancy didn't worry.

Speaker 1 Not then, anyway.

Speaker 9 It wasn't until a couple days later

Speaker 9 that I realized she was missing.

Speaker 2 How was it possible?

Speaker 49 The woman who loved to celebrate didn't.

Speaker 46 The woman who loved to talk called no one.

Speaker 32 The woman who loved her motel suddenly wasn't there.

Speaker 27 Sabina was gone.

Speaker 45 The first troubling clue?

Speaker 30 Her car was someone else at the wheel.

Speaker 17 Flag started going off.

Speaker 6 Who was this mystery driver?

Speaker 42 She would have driven through a very rough area, and it just came to my mind that maybe she'd been carjacked.

Speaker 13 Who said we need to know the truth, and we need to know now.

Speaker 37 The air was somehow different on tiny Ana Maria Island that November of 2008.

Speaker 34 Not just because Obama won the election, but because Sabina Musil Bueller, the one and only, was not around to celebrate.

Speaker 5 Not with her friends, not with her pets, not at her motel.

Speaker 9 She would never, ever leave her animals. She would never, ever not go to Haley's to work.
I mean, that was her baby.

Speaker 39 Then, two days later, 2.30 in the morning, a seedy neighborhood across the bridge on the mainland, a patrolman pulled over a white Pontiac convertible with a burned-out taillight.

Speaker 18 As the cop approached the car, the driver ran.

Speaker 41 There was a wild chase, but they caught him.

Speaker 36 His name was Robert Corona.

Speaker 35 And he had a story, said detectives Jeffrey Bliss and John Kenney of the Manatee County Sheriff's Office.

Speaker 17 Mr. Corona's original story is I was doing crack cocaine with the owner of the car, and it wasn't reported stolen.

Speaker 34 Did he say he knew who the owner was?

Speaker 17 Yes, and had permission to have the car.

Speaker 12 But when detectives checked the registration, they learned the convertible belonged to Sabina.

Speaker 1 And Corona had a record.

Speaker 53 He's a known street criminal.

Speaker 13 He has a lengthy arrest history.

Speaker 31 And they learned from Sabina's friends.

Speaker 47 That there had to be something very wrong with the story that had her doing drugs and drinking with a felon in a smoky bar in a seedy part of town.

Speaker 9 She would never be buying drugs. I mean, she would not even allow people to smoke around her.
She would not let people smoke in Haley's motel property.

Speaker 9 I mean, not even on the rooms, but on the property. I mean, she was.

Speaker 16 He was kind of a health fanatic.

Speaker 9 She was. She had a private personal trainer.
I mean, she was very into health.

Speaker 47 So they arrested Corona, installed him in the county jail.

Speaker 41 And in the morning, drove over to Haley's Motel to talk to Sabina's husband, Tom.

Speaker 34 And Tom said he hadn't seen Sabina in a couple of days.

Speaker 7 He hadn't filed a missing persons report, but did after police came around.

Speaker 47 What was he like?

Speaker 21 What was your impression of the guy?

Speaker 13 He was concerned for her well-being. He couldn't, she wasn't answering her phone.
He couldn't find her.

Speaker 23 And something else.

Speaker 37 According to Tom, Sabina never let anyone drive her car, not even him.

Speaker 5 Now there was a stolen car, a missing woman, and a known criminal.

Speaker 43 Not adding up to a good combination for Sabina.

Speaker 17 Flag started going off and shortly thereafter, detectives started getting involved as a missing persons case.

Speaker 2 But then it got worse.

Speaker 35 When detectives went over the car, they found blood drops in the back seat.

Speaker 45 A patch of the rear seat had been cut out.

Speaker 1 So they sprayed luminol around, found more blood traces on the rear seat.

Speaker 34 Now Sabina's friends, like Chris Tillette, were horrified.

Speaker 14 So then we thought, oh my god, it was him.

Speaker 54 He killed her.

Speaker 28 He must have killed her.

Speaker 4 Well, now it was a homicide investigation.

Speaker 45 Detective Jeff Bliss decided to pay a visit to Corona in jail.

Speaker 13 I put my business card down on the table and slid it across. And we said, we're homicide detectives, but this isn't auto theft.
We need to know the truth, and we need to know now.

Speaker 13 And he's like, hey, I had nothing to do with any murders. And then he changed his story.

Speaker 41 Corona's new story?

Speaker 37 He never met anybody named Sabina.

Speaker 33 He just found her car parked behind a place called the Gator Lounge, Lounge, a not exactly upscale wine bar.

Speaker 15 In a jailhouse interview, Corona claimed it was just a crime of opportunity.

Speaker 23 You didn't see anybody, though, did you?

Speaker 55 I didn't see nobody inside the car or around the car, so that's why I decided to take the car. You know, so I go inside the car, I sit, then I see the keys, so I'm like, oh, you know what I mean?

Speaker 13 So the vehicle was left like somebody wanted it stolen.

Speaker 13 So he just took the liberty of stealing that car.

Speaker 39 Was the second story any more true than the first?

Speaker 47 The local paper jumped on all this, of course, and Bonner Joy heard a lot of stories.

Speaker 42 There were a number of people who speculated that Sabine might have gone to town to go to the Obama celebration that was being held downtown.

Speaker 42 The area that she would have driven through to go to that party is a very rough area. And it just came to my mind that maybe she'd been carjacked.

Speaker 1 Certainly. Something very bad must have happened.

Speaker 2 Something, maybe, that happened in her car.

Speaker 36 So, was Corona their killer?

Speaker 15 Or was he finally telling the truth that he stole her car outside that barn?

Speaker 39 But if that was true, how did it get there?

Speaker 34 And where was Sabina?

Speaker 38 Could it be Sabina had plans no one knew about?

Speaker 6 Had this free spirit simply skipped town?

Speaker 14 There were two women who were at the Sarasota airport, and they were sure that they saw her up ahead, in line, you know, to get onto an airplane.

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Speaker 47 It was a disturbing time on Ana Maria Island.

Speaker 45 What happened to Sabina?

Speaker 33 When they found her car, there was blood in it, and the felon who'd stolen it kept changing his story.

Speaker 50 So the logical conclusion was dark indeed.

Speaker 15 Still, she could have just gone back to Germany to see her family or something, right?

Speaker 17 Right, and there was extensive

Speaker 17 leads and investigation to determine that.

Speaker 37 In fact, apparently, Sabina had been seen alive and well at the local airport.

Speaker 36 Her friend Chris Tillet heard the story.

Speaker 14 There were two women who were at the Sarasota airport, and they were sure that they saw her up ahead in line, you know, to get onto an airplane.

Speaker 48 But when detectives checked out the tip.

Speaker 17 Her passport wasn't used at checking surveillance cameras at Sarasota Braden Airport, Tampa Airport, to make sure that

Speaker 17 she did not leave the country or fly out.

Speaker 37 A couple of weeks went by that way.

Speaker 45 Lots of tips, no verifiable sightings.

Speaker 37 And then finally they got the DNA back on that blood in the car.

Speaker 13 We were able to get her toothbrush and some other personal items for a DNA comparison. Yeah.
And we were able to match that up, but that was in fact her blood.

Speaker 32 Her husband, Tom, told a local news reporter he was prepared for the worst from that first morning when he was told about her car.

Speaker 59 The second I knew when the police told me that they found her car without her in it and with the keys in the car, I knew Sabina was no longer with us. I knew something had happened to her immediately.

Speaker 5 So, looked like this guy, Corona, might be on the hook for murder.

Speaker 1 But beyond the blood,

Speaker 43 evidence didn't exactly jump out at them.

Speaker 2 But who else?

Speaker 12 Had Sabina made an enemy?

Speaker 47 When detectives started looking at her life, they had to cast a wide net for people she associated with.

Speaker 38 After all, Sabina was like a magnet.

Speaker 32 Everybody wanted to go to her lavish parties.

Speaker 28 There was a waiting list to get on her party list.

Speaker 27 Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 47 She could even get a little racy for sleepy little Anna Maria Island.

Speaker 42 One of the more unusual things, she hired some people that she knew from Germany who came here to do nude body painting.

Speaker 34 And that

Speaker 18 blew up. That

Speaker 42 nude body painting on Anna Maria Island, you can't do that here.

Speaker 1 But Sabina did what had to be done.

Speaker 47 It can be a tough business running and promoting a little old motel.

Speaker 25 Debts are fat, margins thin.

Speaker 41 And with the economy beginning to tank in 2008, what once was sunny and light was gray with worry.

Speaker 34 Sabina and Tom were in trouble.

Speaker 27 Neighbor Barbara Hines.

Speaker 20 The real estate market had folded. I know from Sabina, not from Tom,

Speaker 20 that they were highly, highly, highly leveraged.

Speaker 11 Please call me for your reservation.

Speaker 47 And while Sabina used her marketing skills to try to keep the motel afloat, Mrs.

Speaker 11 Sabina's kicking, come may I help you.

Speaker 40 She and Tom couldn't do the same for their marriage.

Speaker 15 After more than a decade as husband and wife,

Speaker 33 they were that in name only.

Speaker 45 But what they did not do was divorce or divide up the business.

Speaker 9 They were always still good friends.

Speaker 9 Very good friends. I mean they worked well together.
Romance part, the marriage part seemed to the romance part kind of

Speaker 28 maybe romance changed.

Speaker 29 It certainly did. As the detectives couldn't help but discover, Tom and Sabina had taken up with other people, both of them.

Speaker 40 He with a woman he'd known quite a while, she with a local artist who once worked at the motel as a handyman.

Speaker 23 And then there was the matter of the life insurance.

Speaker 36 How much did he take out on Sabina's life?

Speaker 45 The cops asked.

Speaker 33 $100,000, said Tom.

Speaker 43 Despite what was apparently an amicable breakup, people on Ana Maria Island couldn't help but wonder about Tom.

Speaker 6 More than a few, said Sabina's friend Karen Hodge.

Speaker 60 A lot of people, you know, whispering and kind of, you know, suspecting him in a way, just because they didn't know.

Speaker 39 Photographer Jack Elka did promotional stills for the motel and became good friends with Tom and Sabina.

Speaker 21 There was no evidence found.

Speaker 24 There was no nothing, so everything was speculative.

Speaker 7 Who did it? It's a who did it.

Speaker 24 This is a murder mystery of epic proportions.

Speaker 2 So it was.

Speaker 12 And then,

Speaker 50 12 days after Sabina vanished from the face of the earth, somebody set fire to Haley's motel.

Speaker 14 I'm sure my mouth was hanging open, just going,

Speaker 14 can this get any more bizarre?

Speaker 35 What was this all about?

Speaker 13 We just didn't know.

Speaker 27 Dead or alive, where was Sabina?

Speaker 44 Sabina's husband.

Speaker 1 That $100,000 policy wasn't the whole story.

Speaker 17 It came up later, it was $300,000.

Speaker 12 Money?

Speaker 2 A motive?

Speaker 6 Or just maybe jealousy?

Speaker 17 He had caught him having sex in room 11 at Haley's Motel.

Speaker 37 The torching of Haley's Motel here in Ana Maria, Florida, turned out to be as intractable a mystery as the disappearance of Sabina.

Speaker 41 What they did know was it was no accident. This was arson.

Speaker 15 And it started in a building beside the main hotel structure, a building that once served as Tom and Sabina's living quarters.

Speaker 33 Nobody was hurt, happily, but there were questions.

Speaker 48 Was it personal?

Speaker 32 An attempt to destroy evidence?

Speaker 2 Or what?

Speaker 29 Around town, some people wondered if Tom had something to do with it. Others dismissed that as just plain nonsense.

Speaker 41 Photographer Jack Elke covered the fire for the Islander newspaper.

Speaker 21 That's when the mystery really started to, wow, another element of this puzzle that, why would somebody do that? Kind of bizarre.

Speaker 25 Surely it had to have something to do with whatever happened to Sabina.

Speaker 23 Why would that place burn down?

Speaker 21 Somebody was trying to destroy some evidence or something?

Speaker 8 It was a theory.

Speaker 13 We weren't sure if something happened there and then she was buried somewhere. We just didn't know.

Speaker 41 Months went by without a decent lead. Though it was not for lack of trying to find one, especially where their instincts were telling them Sabina might be buried.

Speaker 34 The beach.

Speaker 13 Well, whenever we would have break, we would come out here to this very spot.

Speaker 62 We'd stand here and review the case and brainstorm the case.

Speaker 37 Detective Sergeant John Kenney and his partner Jeff Bliss kept organizing searches on the beach, looking for any area where the ground or the wide sand beach looked disturbed.

Speaker 13 We took cadaver dogs, walked them up and down the beach. We used ground-penetrating radar, checked various spots on the beach, just trying to find skeletal remains.

Speaker 38 To no avail.

Speaker 39 And in November 2009, the first anniversary of whatever it was that happened, On the beach Sabina loved.

Speaker 10 They had a little memorial.

Speaker 25 Husband Tom tossed a flower wreath into the surf.

Speaker 14 There was no hope.

Speaker 62 We knew.

Speaker 14 She was gone. She was no longer alive.

Speaker 41 But apparently the life insurance company wasn't so sure.

Speaker 45 And right around the time of that memorial service at the beach, Tom went to court to take the first step to get that money.

Speaker 19 If she's declared dead, he gets a lot of insurance money.

Speaker 27 He gets the ownership

Speaker 21 outright of the motel.

Speaker 35 Correct.

Speaker 27 Yes, that.

Speaker 33 Funny, Tom had told the detectives before he'd held a $100,000 policy on Sabina.

Speaker 46 But when he filed papers to declare her dead, turned out there was a second larger life insurance policy that he forgot to mention.

Speaker 17 It came up later, it was $300,000.

Speaker 5 The revelation made the newspapers.

Speaker 47 Attorneys for the insurance company argued that under Florida law, Sabina had to be missing at least five years before she could be declared dead and any insurance money paid out.

Speaker 44 At the hearing, reporters noticed an unusual group of observers listening to the proceedings.

Speaker 42 The whole back row of seats was taken up by sheriff's deputies, and if they weren't interested in what Tom had to say to the insurance company, why were they there?

Speaker 43 But Tom was not successful.

Speaker 42 They denied a death certificate, and Tom was denied the insurance. And I could see

Speaker 31 how they would deny a death certificate.

Speaker 42 There was no body.

Speaker 29 And then the police knew Corona didn't kill Sabina.

Speaker 41 A barmaid at the Gator Lounge was able to confirm the essentials of his story.

Speaker 15 So he was convicted of car theft, not murder.

Speaker 25 And Detective Kenny, who was an island cop had known Sabina and Tom for years, decided to have another try much closer to home.

Speaker 41 He asked Tom for any detail, no matter how small, that might take the investigation beyond the conjecture and whispers of suspicion that floated on the island breeze.

Speaker 17 And he went into a whole background of their courtship, their marriage, and

Speaker 17 how it disintegrated.

Speaker 44 Well, how did it disintegrate?

Speaker 17 He told me that they just slowly

Speaker 17 grew apart and that

Speaker 17 they stayed together because they were very good friends and they owned a business together.

Speaker 41 But, and this seemed unusual, while they stayed married, they moved in with other people.

Speaker 34 Remember, in the year before Sabina went missing, Tom started dating a new woman.

Speaker 33 And Sabina took up with a handsome, younger man who once worked at the motel.

Speaker 34 His name was Bill.

Speaker 2 Bill Cumber.

Speaker 20 The man was very charismatic, dropped dead gorgeous.

Speaker 5 Ten years younger, in fact.

Speaker 33 Sabina was 49. Bill was 39.

Speaker 36 and very different from Tom. Tom, meanwhile, was still Sabina's business partner.

Speaker 46 And that's where things got a little dicey.

Speaker 10 One day, Tom found Sabina in a room in their motel with her new lover, Bill.

Speaker 17 He had caught him having sex in room 11 at Haley's motel. But he said it wasn't a jealousy thing.
It was a lack of respect that,

Speaker 17 you know, having sex with his wife in the hotel room.

Speaker 27 Not jealous?

Speaker 2 Maybe.

Speaker 35 Still, the detectives knew that sort of thing could very well drive a person to do terrible things.

Speaker 27 So, Tom and Bill.

Speaker 39 Did one of them harm Sabina?

Speaker 38 They interviewed Bill the first time back when Sabina's stolen car was found.

Speaker 47 Learned that in 2008 they started dating and eventually they moved into an apartment together.

Speaker 35 Sabina told her friends she'd hit the jackpot with Bill.

Speaker 14 Maybe this was going to be the love of her life. They were going to have a wonderful future together.

Speaker 46 The last time Sabina's friend, photographer Jack Elka, saw her, she was with Bill.

Speaker 27 Jack had never met him before.

Speaker 61 She came over to me and gave me a big kiss and hug, you know, how are you? And she introduced this man to me.

Speaker 61 And he shook my hand, Hey, Jack, how are you doing, man? Long time no see. And I'm looking at this guy thinking, like,

Speaker 21 I don't really know this guy.

Speaker 29 The question was:

Speaker 45 did anybody know Bill?

Speaker 63 I think that the world's missing somebody's

Speaker 63 somebody special.

Speaker 19 Emotion from Bill and a surprise from a stranger.

Speaker 64 He said, you have no idea what you've just done.

Speaker 45 Was he about to blow the case wide open?

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Speaker 15 When Sabina disappeared from Ana Maria Island on election night 2008, detectives took a good look at the two men closest to her.

Speaker 45 the estranged husband, Tom, and the boyfriend, Bill Cumber, with whom she was living at the time.

Speaker 17 Typically, in any missing person case, you'd look at the inner circle first. Husband, paramour.

Speaker 7 Bill gave detectives his story of what happened the night she disappeared.

Speaker 43 Sabina left their place around 10 p.m., he said, intending to go to that Obama victory party.

Speaker 45 And the next thing he knew, detectives were at his door telling him they'd found her car and there was blood inside.

Speaker 43 A few days after that, Bill told his story again to a local TV reporter.

Speaker 63 I think it's a tragedy. I think that the world's missing somebody's...

Speaker 63 Somebody special.

Speaker 46 He told the reporter he blamed himself, in a way.

Speaker 37 Because Sabina left after they argued about his smoking.

Speaker 63 Now I feel responsible for her leaving, leaving here.

Speaker 63 As far as what happened after that, I have no idea.

Speaker 35 The detectives were busy looking at records and discovered that Bill once spent some time behind bars.

Speaker 37 That was after, and unrelated to, his stint as a handyman at the motel.

Speaker 36 And Tom and Sabina went to see him in prison, sent him money, wrote to him, and he wrote back.

Speaker 9 And, you know, Tom, I think, was just throwing him away, but she started writing him back and, you know, trying to help him.

Speaker 45 As Sabina and Tom's romance cooled, her letters to Bill heated up.

Speaker 34 And when Bill was released on probation in 2008, Sabina was waiting for him.

Speaker 47 Sabina's friends, however, did not share her enthusiasm for Bill.

Speaker 21 But it was just they saw something off about him.

Speaker 17 Yes, that,

Speaker 17 you know, she did not.

Speaker 36 No, Sabina saw a young, fit, artistic man who just needed a break.

Speaker 31 Bill was something of an amateur artist, though his sketches didn't seem to amount to much.

Speaker 54 But Sabina was determined to help Bill jump-start his his career, to get his artwork sold, maybe start up a woodworking business.

Speaker 17 She had set him up in a wood shop, bought all his tools.

Speaker 2 And around town, they certainly looked like lovebirds.

Speaker 33 Still, two weeks after Sabina vanished, the detectives asked Bill to come in for another interview, and that's when he told them about the argument.

Speaker 51 We got in a verbal dispute

Speaker 51 and went to.

Speaker 51 I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 27 Oh, Sir Albrado, I have no control over where she goes,

Speaker 51 what she does. Right.
But

Speaker 21 you guys were not in a physical altercation.

Speaker 51 No.

Speaker 27 We've never had a physical altercation.

Speaker 43 But did they push him? Did they challenge him?

Speaker 44 Yes, they did.

Speaker 51 Where'd you dump her at?

Speaker 27 This woman you love so much.

Speaker 51 She left. I don't...
What do you mean, dump her?

Speaker 21 You dumped her.

Speaker 51 I ain't got nothing to do with what she beat her at all.

Speaker 18 You have nothing to do with what happened to to her after she left no

Speaker 33 but try as they might bill cumber did not crack

Speaker 21 so they sent him home but kept an eye on him what made you think that he was the guy who would have killed her i mean they were going out together so we knew they had had argument that day at least one was there any other evidence that pointed toward him besides that not until he vacated his apartment without sabina to pay the rent bill was evicted and the detectives got permission to get in there to sweet.

Speaker 17 The first time I entered the apartment, it was a heavy, heavy scent of bleach.

Speaker 10 Wait a minute, how long after?

Speaker 48 Four or five weeks?

Speaker 16 And yet the smell of bleach was still strong at that point?

Speaker 17 Yes. We went in and searched it, and we found additional blood evidence with DNA.

Speaker 39 What did all of that say to you?

Speaker 13 Something bad happened right there.

Speaker 47 But Bill told the detectives that was innocent blood.

Speaker 43 Sabina once cut herself here.

Speaker 37 And then they found Bill's DNA on the driver's seat of Sabina's car.

Speaker 36 But he told detectives she let him drive it.

Speaker 17 We knew that no one, even her husband, was not allowed to drive her car.

Speaker 27 But then they looked at Bill's hand.

Speaker 62 He had an injury on his hand that was consistent with a friction burn that I myself had got when we were out here digging test holes.

Speaker 22 Just from the shovel, getting on your palm of your hand.

Speaker 62 Yeah, just from shoveling.

Speaker 39 Bill said he fell off his bike.

Speaker 27 And the more detectives looked at Bill Cumber, the worse it looked for him.

Speaker 46 The reason he did time in prison, for example?

Speaker 36 He was convicted of arson.

Speaker 13 He was jealous of his girlfriend Paramore, and they had an argument, and he tried to burn the house down with her and the kids in it.

Speaker 46 It turned out the Haley's motel fire was intentionally started with accelerants. Bill's shoes were tested later and had traces of accelerants, too.

Speaker 43 But that wasn't enough to make a case.

Speaker 38 So, did they arrest Bill, charge him with murdering Sabina?

Speaker 12 No, they did not.

Speaker 47 A no-body case would be very tough, said the prosecutors.

Speaker 38 There's no proof the woman was even dead.

Speaker 5 So the detectives turned up the heat.

Speaker 15 So there's always somebody knocking at the door.

Speaker 22 I want to talk to you, want to talk to you.

Speaker 17 He had a legitimate safety concern for other residents,

Speaker 17 especially if he wound up getting with another female.

Speaker 39 And Bill couldn't take it.

Speaker 15 He left Ana Maria Island, left the county.

Speaker 25 Unfortunately for him, that was a probation violation.

Speaker 35 So, before long, Bill was in jail.

Speaker 47 Well, the detectives kept looking for Sabina everywhere.

Speaker 38 No trace.

Speaker 41 Then, in 2011, three years after she disappeared, a man named Ed Moss was clearing brush in front of his house on the island, right next to the beach.

Speaker 64 And underneath a log,

Speaker 64 there was a

Speaker 32 kind of a small purse.

Speaker 31 Looked stolen, said Ed.

Speaker 25 So he showed it to a deputy.

Speaker 64 And his eyes got really big, and he looked at me. He said,

Speaker 64 you have no idea what you've just done.

Speaker 34 It was Sabina's purse.

Speaker 15 Her driver's license confirmed it.

Speaker 39 So, Detectives Kenny and Bliss brought an army of police and equipment and started searching the area for her remains.

Speaker 34 But again, after weeks of digging through the sand and bush, nothing.

Speaker 17 Both of us were obsessed with this case. You know, we know he did it.

Speaker 61 Another thing Kenny knew was that Tom didn't do it.

Speaker 25 Remember, some people on the island had been suspicious of Tom, but privately detectives had long since cleared him.

Speaker 17 I could tell that he didn't do it.

Speaker 17 But we went through the steps and we alibied him and did

Speaker 17 everything that needed to be done to make sure.

Speaker 32 Apparently, his attempt to cash out the insurance policy so quickly was just a matter of financial survival.

Speaker 24 I would never thought that Tom had anything to do with this. That's why I felt so brokenhearted.

Speaker 43 So, with Tom and the clear, detectives consulted with other jurisdictions on how they handled no body cases and lined lined up all the forensic and circumstantial evidence.

Speaker 32 And finally, the prosecutor told them they were ready.

Speaker 47 In 2012, four years after Sabina vanished, Bill Cumber was indicted for second-degree murder.

Speaker 1 But it was not going to be an easy case.

Speaker 17 Obviously, evidence that goes with the body, you know, cause of death, manner of death,

Speaker 17 and we didn't have that.

Speaker 2 And what would it take for a jury to believe handsome Bill was a killer?

Speaker 47 A final clue leads detectives back to the beach and puts a trial on hold.

Speaker 13 He was crying quite a bit. That was the first time that I've ever seen him emotional.

Speaker 1 The days slid by rather more slowly for Bill Cumber, back in prison on a parole violation and under indictment for murder.

Speaker 26 But he did have visitors, detectives Kenny and Bliss.

Speaker 45 Both had moved on to other cases, but they still made time to press Bill to come clean.

Speaker 17 We traveled three or four times up to where he was in prison and tried to interview him.

Speaker 41 What would he say?

Speaker 17 Said he had nothing to do with it or didn't want to talk to us.

Speaker 26 But of course, they didn't believe that.

Speaker 47 The detectives were sure Bill killed Sabina, and in 2015, they thought they had an offer he couldn't refuse.

Speaker 17 We got the blessing of the state attorney to offer him a deal.

Speaker 2 The deal?

Speaker 10 Tell detectives where to find the body in exchange for a lesser sentence.

Speaker 17 He makes this statement, I'll take my chances with a jury. The hair on my neck stands up because that's a very telling statement.
An innocent man is going to say, I didn't do it.

Speaker 43 Bill would be taking his chances soon.

Speaker 41 His trial was just a month away.

Speaker 50 So detectives approached the one person who maybe could persuade Bill to take the deal.

Speaker 17 Detective Bliss actually took the defense attorney into our property office and viewed all the evidence.

Speaker 36 There was Sabina's blood on the couch, Cumber's hands with those blisters detectives believed came from burying her, and the evidence in her car that cut upholstery with her blood and Bill's DNA.

Speaker 17 I think they went to Cumber and said,

Speaker 17 you know, we're going to have a tough time with this.

Speaker 1 Pretty soon, prosecutor Art Brown got a call.

Speaker 67 I received a feeler from Mr. Cumber's defense attorney that he might be interested in a plea offer.
20 years in prison if he would tell us the location of Sabine.

Speaker 27 What do you know?

Speaker 2 Bill bit.

Speaker 41 On October 15th, 2015, a bearded Bill Cumber pleaded no contest to second-degree murder.

Speaker 35 Then he sat down to answer questions with a tape recorder rolling.

Speaker 23 What was that interview like?

Speaker 30 Chilling.

Speaker 37 According to Bill, the argument about smoking was just part of it.

Speaker 33 The bad part started, he said, when Sabina told him they were done.

Speaker 56 So, Sabine thinks she can't go on with this anymore.

Speaker 56 What happens at that point?

Speaker 68 I lose control.

Speaker 68 I hit her in the head with my fist. And this is a disgusting situation, man.

Speaker 56 What's her reaction to being struck?

Speaker 68 She gets scared and she covers her face with her hands. Okay.

Speaker 67 And

Speaker 67 what do you do at that point?

Speaker 67 I

Speaker 68 reached and grabbed her throat and started choking her.

Speaker 49 He choked her till she stopped moving.

Speaker 29 He said she never fought back.

Speaker 31 Did he seem remorseful?

Speaker 27 Somewhat.

Speaker 13 I mean he wasn't teary-eyed. He was just kind of getting off his chest.

Speaker 68 I just couldn't believe what I did.

Speaker 68 I stared down at her and

Speaker 68 All things, kinds of things were running through my mind. I couldn't believe what I had done.

Speaker 46 He said he took a sheet off the the bed and rolled her up in it waited about an hour dragged her out to the car he put her in the back seat where she bled on the place he cut out the upholstery and then he drove to the beach to bury her did you bring a shovel with you yes

Speaker 40 on the way to bury her he stole a shovel from haley's motel And then after he buried her, he said he drove to the Gator Lounge, left the keys in the car, hoping somebody would steal it.

Speaker 43 And then he took a bus back to the island and a trolley back home.

Speaker 67 I thought he minimized certain aspects of his involvement in the murder.

Speaker 12 Minimize what?

Speaker 67 He says that it was just a split-second moment of insanity. I think there was a little bit more calculation than that.

Speaker 50 After the interview, Detective Bliss put Bill in his car and drove to the beach.

Speaker 30 Then, in handcuffs and leg irons, he shuffled down a long path to a place on the sand where he'd often sat with Sabina.

Speaker 50 This is where he brought her body.

Speaker 13 A spot they used to sit at all the time right down the road from Haley's motel, and then he buried her on the beach there.

Speaker 38 Right here, where he and Sabina came to watch the sunset.

Speaker 27 Over here?

Speaker 8 Which window did you put her in?

Speaker 50 Her neck here, the feet of the boundary.

Speaker 1 Detective Bliss mapped the area.

Speaker 5 with tiny yellow flags.

Speaker 51 About how deep was the hole?

Speaker 27 About four feet, four or five feet.

Speaker 29 And then the detective gave Bill an opportunity, whether he deserved it or not.

Speaker 13 I told him if he wanted to say a prayer, he could, and that's when he got teary-eyed and emotional, and he apologized to her.

Speaker 13 I I walked him back to the car, and he just asked me to let her family know that she was a very good woman and she didn't deserve to die. He was very sorry for what he had done.

Speaker 43 Once he left, a team of detectives and the medical examiner dug slowly, carefully.

Speaker 15 And by the end of the day, they had found what was left of Sabina.

Speaker 16 What was that like for you after all those years of trying to find something and failing?

Speaker 13 We were elated, elated, me and my partners.

Speaker 2 It's a sense of relief, closure.

Speaker 43 Bill Cumber was returned to jail and is now serving his 20-year sentence in state prison.

Speaker 17 A lot of people probably aren't happy with the 20 years he got, but

Speaker 17 they're not part of the family that has to deal with it. Should he have gotten life?

Speaker 8 Absolutely.

Speaker 6 Detective Sergeant Kenny is retired now and Detective Bliss is no longer with the Sheriff's Office.

Speaker 44 Tom Bueller, who lost both a a woman he loved and for years his good reputation, has tried to move on.

Speaker 6 He's remarried now and has sold his beloved Haley's Motel.

Speaker 37 And up and down the streets of Ana Maria Island, Sabina's friends remember.

Speaker 9 I'm so blessed that she was in my life, even for that amount of time, because she touched my life deeply.

Speaker 9 And I think it makes me really appreciate each and every day even more because it can cut short.

Speaker 27 Even here in this little remnant of paradise.

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