It’s been more than 22 years since Mary Lou Combs went missing in Flagler Beach, Florida, but thanks to a team of veteran volunteers, it appears her remains have finally been found.
Combs, 41 years old at the time, hadn’t been seen since driving from the home she sometimes shared with her mother and children on Aug. 19, 2003. Concern about her whereabouts grew after she failed to get her paycheck at a Food Lion supermarket in Flagler Beach and didn’t show up for her daughter’s birthday shortly after.
Combs became a missing person, and her baffling case went cold for more than 20 years – until now.
In February, a crew of volunteer divers recovered the red car Combs had been last seen driving deeply submerged in the Intracoastal Waterway alongside 18th Road in Flagler County. Inside the vehicle were several personal items, including children’s toys, based on a report from the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office.
Marine Corps veteran Ken Fleming, a member of the Recon Dive Recovery team, worked with Navy submarine veteran Vern Shurtz to recover Combs’ remains.
“It was just wonderful to bring her back and be able to call this a solved case,” Fleming told First Coast News.
How They Did It
Fleming and Shurtz, who runs the Helo & Sub diving team, were notified of the Combs case two years ago by Sarah Scalia, a Flagler cold case detective. Utilizing side-scan sonar, Fleming and Schurtz spent the past couple of years searching in more than 300 bodies of water between Combs’ house to the store where she worked, along with adjacent roadways and neighborhoods.
After an exhaustive search, last October provided a small breakthrough. The divers found car parts, a spring and bumper, that matched Combs’ 1996 Dodge Neon in the Intracoastal Waterway. It was a small glimmer of hope that kept the veterans searching.
“Since Oct. 29, we’ve had one mantra,” Fleming said. “Vern and I would look at each other and say, ‘One bone, one bone.’ We just need one bone for DNA. We need to prove that this is her, that she’s in the vehicle.”
Combs’ case drew the attention of both the Federal Bureau of Investigations Underwater Search and Evidence Response Team in Miami and the Jacksonville Evidence Response Team. On Feb. 3, National Missing Persons Day, both groups teamed with Fleming and Shurtz, along with Flagler County deputies, on a three-day mission to try to recover Combs’ remains. Even if they found the vehicle, there was no guarantee any part of her body would still be in or near the car.
Entering the overturned, decomposed vehicle via a broken driver’s side window, the divers dredged and sucked up mud and debris into buckets on shore.
It didn’t take long to find what they were searching for. Within hours, divers recovered a pelvic bone in the car.
“At that point in time, everybody knew that, yes, we are here and we are having a recovery, and we’re going to be able to bring someone’s loved one home,” Shurtz said.
Besides finding additional car parts, investigators discovered Combs’ Florida driver’s license, a size 7 shoe that matched her shoe size, bones with a metal plate intact from an ankle surgery, toys and a child’s seat that Natasha Harper, Combs’ daughter, said belong to her.
Shurtz said all organizations working together made the recovery possible.
“Everybody was determined to do all that they could to bring the remains of Mary Lou Combs home,” he said. “It was one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen.”
Mired in murky saltwater and muck for 22 years, the Dodge Neon was terribly corroded, adding another challenge for divers.
“When you touch the metal, it just disintegrated into paper, and we realized we were going to need a different tactic,” Fleming said. “No one would have thought that car could have gone 180 feet upstream in the current. It’s changed the way we look at cases; you have to go above and beyond the normal search pattern.”
DNA Must Confirm It
While the boatload of physical evidence “strongly suggests” the remains are Combs,’ Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said the county medical examiner’s findings, along with DNA analysis, will make the final determination.
Based on evidence, Staly said it’s possible Combs drove off the roadway by accident, plunging into the Intracoastal near the end of 18th Road, however the investigation is ongoing.
While the findings are still not 100 percent concrete, the evidence provides some relief for Combs’ family.
“We’re forever grateful that we can finally say goodbye,” Harper said at a press conference. “Thank you to everyone that has played a part in this blessing. May our mother rest in paradise.”
Support Needed
The Combs’ investigation is the seventh cold case Fleming and Shurtz have helped close. While their volunteer work is unpaid, both see it as a mission to help grieving families while continuing their commitment to service.
“Grief is love sent without a destination,” Fleming said. “We like to bring that home.”
Through community support and donations, Fleming and Shurtz can keep doing what they love, but with more families asking for help, funding is needed.
“We are self-funded, we are broke,” Fleming said. “We’re doing this out of our own grocery money all the time. I’ve got five families that want us to come to their jurisdictions right now. We have to fix our equipment before we can fuel up and go to the next one, so if they could support us, that would be incredible.”
