Susan Poole, a 15-year-old white female, was reported missing just before Christmas in 1972. At the time, she was living between her family's trailer park home in Broward County, Florida, and a nearby apartment where a friend resided. Her disappearance was sudden and mysterious—her clothes and pocketbook were left behind at the friend's apartment, and no one knew where she had gone.
Susan Poole had dropped out of high school and was known to frequent the area near Fort Lauderdale.
In June 1974, approximately a year and a half after her disappearance, skeletal remains were discovered in a remote mangrove area off Highway A1A in Palm Beach County. The remains were bound with wire to a tree, and due to the state of decomposition, only bones were recovered. At the time, forensic technology was limited, and the remains could not be identified. The case quickly went cold.
Decades later, in 2021, advancements in DNA technology allowed investigators to revisit the case. A Texas-based forensic lab specializing in genetic genealogy was able to build a DNA profile from the remains. In March 2022, the lab identified the remains as those of Susan Poole by matching DNA from her mother and siblings. This breakthrough brought long-awaited answers to her family, including her mother, who was in her 90s at the time.
Investigators believe that Susan Poole may have been a victim of Gerard Schaefer, a former police officer and convicted serial killer. Schaefer had a history of abducting and murdering young women in the same region during the early 1970s. He was known for tying his victims to trees and torturing them—details that closely matched the condition in which Susan Poole's remains were found. Schaefer had previously been convicted of murdering two teenage girls and was suspected in the deaths of up to 30 women. He was killed in prison in 1995.
Although no physical evidence has definitively linked Gerard Schaefer to the murder of Susan Poole, detectives consider him the prime suspect due to the similarities in modus operandi and geographic proximity. Authorities continue to seek information from individuals who may have known Susan Poole or had knowledge of her activities around the time of her disappearance. Her case remains officially unsolved, but the identification of her remains has provided a measure of closure to her family after nearly five decades.
