Gail Schoening, Missing for 12 Years, Found in Bottom of Lake

Gail Schoening's family spent 12 years scouring Broward County and chasing leads around the state for signs of the missing woman.

She had not gone far.

Plantation police found Gail Schoening's body entombed in her car at the bottom of a lake, only about 100 yards from her front door.

Although some questions remain, family members said they are pleased to finally have learned what happened to Schoening, they said Friday.

"We're happy she was found, but sad about the circumstances," said her mother, Arlene Schoening, of North Brunswick, N.J. "We'd been going through all the possibilities."

Gail Schoening was a month shy of her 36th birthday when she vanished in April 1997.

Her family said she left her apartment in the Gatehouse on the Green complex to catch a flight for a job interview in North Carolina. Recently divorced, she was hoping to be hired as a computer database analyst in that state. But she never made it to the airport.

Gail Schoening's parents worked with police to try to find her. A year after Gail Schoening's disappearance, an unknown caller requested a PIN number on her 401(k) account in Orlando, but the lead didn't pan out. Other tips and sightings proved fruitless.

The case did have one big clue: Her 1997 Mitsubishi Eclipse also was missing. Early on, the Shoenings suspected their daughter might have driven into a canal or lake. They hired a pilot to fly over bodies of water.

Police checked that possibility and sent dive teams to dredge several bodies of water, said Detective Robert Rettig, a Plantation police spokesman.

"It's hard to deal with a lake that's got a lot of silt and mud in it," Rettig said Friday. "Visibility was a problem, but we eventually acquired technology that could help us deal with that."

In July, Plantation police used more advanced sonar equipment to search the water around Gail Schoening's former apartment.

A team using the high-tech gear Aug. 18 found the body 12 feet below the lake surface, Arlene Schoening said. Divers had searched that lake shortly after Gail Schoening disappeared, police said.

Investigators said Gail Schoening drove through a narrow space between two parked cars and went into the water, Rettig said. The car flipped upside-down before landing at the bottom of the lake.

Memorial services will be held Christmas week in North Brunswick and Central Florida, where Gail Schoening's parents are moving.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/plantation/fl-plantation-woman-found-20091120,0,7563128.story?page=2

How sad... Im glad the family finally has some closure. I remember the story and althoguh the story doesnt mention anything about her X, I wonder if he was the primary suspect??? This is a good example of hew technology has come a long way..

I got the feeling from the statements made by the family in the article J4A provided that they felt it was an accident.... but it is hard to know if there is more to the story.

Twelve long years of searching and wondering. I'm glad they finally found her.