Post by Scumhunter on Nov 23, 2018 5:19:55 GMT -5
(Above photo credit: Volusia County Sheriff's Office website)
From the Daytona Beach News-Journal website:
They found the 12-year-old Osteen girl’s skull in a paint can, yet, 40 years later, detectives are still no closer to finding her killer.
Carol Lynn Sullivan was last seen around 6:50 a.m. Sept. 20, 1978, at her school bus stop at the corner of Courtland Boulevard and Doyle Road in Deltona. Her skull was found 12 days later more than 2 miles away.
The rest of her bones were never recovered.
For years, rumors have circulated that Sullivan was the victim of a serial killer. Did the man suspected of killing Adam Walsh in Hollywood three years later kill Sullivan? Or was the culprit a different serial killer, one who killed his mother and wife and also mutilated and decapitated at least two other women in South and Central Florida?
No links were ever established to those killers, and there are still no lead suspects, said Steve White, a cold case detective with the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office.
“Things like this should not befall our children,” White said, explaining why child murder cases are the hardest to handle emotionally. “Our children should be free to go to school without fear (and) without the threat of bodily violence and death. And when a child is murdered, it shakes the foundation of our society.”
Sullivan’s skull was inside a 1-gallon paint can sitting in the tall grass on a slope near a pond in the area of Doyle Road and Saxon Boulevard, farther west into Deltona. It was discovered by chance by then-19-year-old Bob Gorman, who was exploring the area in the vicinity of his parents’ future home.
He had spent his life up to that point in New Jersey, upstate New York and Canada. He wanted to see some Florida wildlife.
"I was told that every pond and lake in Florida had an alligator and I hadn’t seen one yet,” said Gorman, who now owns a brake-repair business in DeBary.
“As I walked (to the pond) ... I saw a something in the grass there that looked like a paint can. It was suspended in the grass and it caught my attention.”
He picked it up and saw a skull inside. The stench of decay hung in the air. Fire ants crawled in and out of the can. He set it down, ran to his car, drove to the nearest convenience store and called the Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies were astonished at the sight of the skull in the can, but they were skeptical that it was that of Carol Lynn Sullivan. The flesh was gone. Other than a small patch of hair, all that was left was bone. Only 12 days had passed since Sullivan disappeared, and they didn’t believe a human head could decompose that fast.
A forensic dentist, however, confirmed it. The skull was Sullivan’s.
“That’s when it bothered me,” said Gorman, who grew emotional in a telephone interview as he recalled the moment he learned that a forensic specialist had linked the skull with the missing girl.
Gorman had originally assumed the skull came from a nearby cemetery, one that was routinely vandalized. The truth was even more shocking.
“It sunk in at that point,” Gorman said. “It’s been on my mind ever since.”
At the start of the investigation, detectives locked in on one person of interest. A Deltona truck driver was arrested in October 1978 on allegations of sexual battery and exposing himself to children. He was questioned by investigators, who brought their findings to the State Attorney’s Office, White said. There was not enough evidence to proceed. No warrant was issued.
The can that contained the victim’s head also had traces of paint still in it. Investigators learned that the paint in that can was a specialty paint used by auto body shops. A piece of duct tape also was found at the scene that contained a different kind of paint, but one that also was specific to automobiles, White said.
Forty years later, the case is still active and detectives are still working it. The victim’s family moved out of the area shortly after the killing. They still feel the anguish.
White said he had a conversation recently with the victim’s brother, who was angry about a book that was published suggesting that deceased serial killer Charlie Brandt, the one who killed his own mother and wife, was the one who most likely killed Sullivan. White told Sullivan’s brother that the authors of the book never consulted him or anyone else at the Sheriff’s Office. There is no known link to Brandt and Sullivan.
During the same conversation with Sullivan’s brother, White was told the victim’s mother is still wrestling with the realization of her daughter’s fate.
“He told me that his mother never got over it,” White said. “In fact, to this day, (she) refuses to accept that her daughter is deceased. It’s causing her great stress.”
Anyone with information about the murder of Carol Lynn Sullivan is urged to call the Sheriff’s Office cold case unit at 386-254-1535.
www.news-journalonline.com/news/20180924/cold-case-of-osteen-girl-abducted-from-bus-stop-unsolved-40-years-later
Thoughts? For us longtime AMW fans, we know they are obviously referring to to the now deceased Ottis Toole as Carol Lynn's possible killer.
It is my opinion that Carol was the victim of a serial killer, known or unknown. Hopefully modern scientific advancements will one day close her heartbreaking and horrific case.
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