Greater than twenty years after a Florida mom mysteriously vanished and not using a hint, divers have recovered human stays and her submerged automobile from a waterway.
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Workplace introduced that divers recovered elements of a crimson 1996 Plymouth Neon, clothes, kids’s toys, a Florida driver’s license and human stays believed to be these of Mary Lou Combs, a Palm Coast girl.
Combs was final seen on Aug. 19, 2003, leaving a house she shared “periodically” along with her mom and three kids, the sheriff’s workplace mentioned. The 41-year-old by no means returned.
Her household grew to become involved when she by no means confirmed as much as her daughter’s birthday celebration days later.
Whereas Combs had a historical past of disappearing, in accordance with her household, not displaying as much as her kids’s occasions was utterly out of character.
Combs additionally by no means picked up her last paycheck from her job at a neighborhood Meals Lion.
For years, investigators chased ideas and searched a number of places, however no proof surfaced.
That modified in October 2025, when a voluntary dive group positioned what gave the impression to be a bumper matching Combs’ lacking automobile within the Intracoastal Waterway close to Palm Coast.
The automobile was later discovered the wrong way up, buried in 14 to 17 toes of water and muck.
A multi-day restoration operation involving the FBI’s Underwater Search and Proof Response Workforce and different companies started Feb. 3.
Divers entered the submerged automobile and used dredging gear to get well its contents.
Among the many objects pulled from the water had been a steering wheel labeled “Neon,” a handbook window crank, a ground mat, a measurement 7 shoe per Combs’ measurement, and kids’s objects, together with toys and a baby seat.
Investigators additionally recovered a bone containing a steel plate believed to match an ankle reconstruction surgical procedure Combs had undergone earlier than she disappeared.
Authorities are working to verify whether or not the serial numbers match her medical data.
Sheriff Rick Staly mentioned he hopes that the tireless work of detectives may give Combs’ household the solutions they want to allow them to “lastly lay their cherished one to relaxation.”
“All of the proof gathered to date means that the stays we now have recovered are these of Mary Lou Combs,” Staly mentioned. “Whereas this isn’t the result anybody hoped for, we knew finding Mary alive was extraordinarily unlikely given the size of time she had been lacking.”
Whereas rumors circulated for years that Combs might have died at a celebration and been disposed of, investigators say present proof suggests she might have by accident pushed into the Intracoastal Waterway and drowned.
The stays at the moment are with the medical expert. DNA testing is underway to verify id and decide the reason for loss of life.
