Shock in Martin County Florida when the body of a Jensen Beach woman, 57 year old Cynthia Cole, was found submerged in a septic tank in her own backyard.
And now it’s believed Cole may have been buried alive.
Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said the medical examiner’s report showed that Cole had blunt-force trauma to her head and abdomen and also appeared to have suffocated.
“The medical examiner cannot rule out that our victim was actually alive when she was placed into that septic tank,” Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said. “He’s doing microscopic evidence now, he submitted it for evaluation, so we’ll know definitively if she was alive when she was placed into that septic tank.”
An autopsy report for Cynthia Cole shows that the 57-year-old woman’s manner of death was a homicide, but the cause of death has yet to be determined.
Her handyman, 34 year old Keoki Demich, was soon after arrested on a charge of second-degree murder.
The Martin County sheriff says the handyman who’s accused of killing a woman and throwing her body in a septic tank had known her for years.
Cole had been reported missing last month after she had last been seen alive at the Jammin’ Jensen event in downtown Jensen Beach.
The arrest affidavit said Cole suffered a traumatic head injury.