Remains found in March ID'd as Susy Tomassi, missing for 5 years; death ruled homicide
INDIAN RIVER COUNTY – Skeletal remains discovered in a mangrove swamp in March were found definitively to belong to Susy Tomassi, the missing 73-year-old with dementia who forensic analysts said was shot and killed after walking away from a family restaurant five years ago.
The identity and cause of death were announced Tuesday by Indian River County Sheriff’s Office officials citing findings of local medical examiners and University of Florida forensic anthropologists.
Dental records were among laboratory measures used to identify Tomassi from remains found March 3 in a dense mangrove swamp of the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area north of the Oslo Road Boat Ramp.
“We have, I would say, the majority of her skeletal remains recovered,” said Sheriff Eric Flowers. “As well as most of the clothing and her belongings. The majority of them were recovered.”
Flowers would not disclose the location of the gunshot wound, but said no other signs of trauma were uncovered from the bones found scattered in the “muddy, murky, mangrove area.”
“That’s the main thing − the gunshot wound,” Flowers said, after a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
Regarding the possible weapon or bullet size, he said: "They’ll never be able to determine that (caliber)."
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“We can say that she was struck by a bullet," he said. "There’s a pretty good chance that that had a great effect on her ability to survive.”
Flowers, along with Detective Phil Daugherty, announced the creation of a hotline, following what was said to be a “great tip” from a woman who reported a similar encounter to what they believe Tomassi experienced just before she was killed.
After Tomassi’s remains were found earlier this year, a woman reported to detectives an encounter she said she had with a white man in a white pickup truck as she walked through the South Vero Square shopping plaza off U.S. 1.
The woman's reported occurrence happened several months before Tomassi’s disappearance. The woman said the man attempted to lure her into that truck, Flowers said.
In 2019, detectives released surveillance footage enhanced by the FBI.
Officials said it showed for the first time what is thought to be the last known sighting of Susy Tomassi.
In footage from what appears to be a camera near a generator behind Publix in South Vero Square, a large white pickup pulls up to Oslo Road and stops as a figure similar in build to Tomassi passes behind its tailgate walking west.
"If you watch that video of Ms. Tomassi, I mean she walks past the truck; she’s called back to the truck, and she gets in the truck," Flowers said. "It’s very possible that he lured her into that truck."
The man, described as a person of interest, was possibly in his 30s or 40s with a medium build and shoulder length brown hair at the time of the encounter.
"The amount of time that that truck is down there and gone is not long," Flowers said. "It’s going to be an interesting case to try to determine what exactly happened to her down there at the end of the Oslo boat ramp."
The bones were found by a fisherman March 3 in mangroves along the Indian River Lagoon and were analyzed by a Treasure Coast medical examiner and sent to the C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory in Gainesville, Flowers said.
"She definitely was in the water at some point," Flowers said. "The fact that articles of clothing were up in the mangroves shows that the water line had come up, rose, and had fallen back down."
Details from the initial missing person report from Susy Tomassi's husband Patrick Tomassi, of St. Lucie Village, on March 16, 2018, state she walked away from their restaurant, The Quilted Giraffe, at 500 U.S. 1, after going to the back porch area to read a book around 5:15 p.m. The restaurant has since been sold, demolished and is where HCA Florida Vero Beach Emergency has been built.
Tomassi, now 62, reported his wife missing around 6:45 p.m. telling deputies he looked for her for in a nearby plaza off U.S. 1 and Oslo Road where she frequently shopped, but couldn’t find her.
An April 13, 2018, a missing person update on Punta Gorda Police Department's social media stated: “At the time she walked away, she was able to identify family, friends and was aware her family owned the Quilted Giraffe and Mr. Manatee’s in Vero Beach, but more recently, she would also sometimes meet strangers and think she knew them as friends.”
According to a March 20, 2018, Sheriff's Office social media post, “an extensive ground search was conducted of the Oslo Preserve and surrounding areas by air, sea, and on ATV.”
"They're looking at everything that we can to make a determination of whether or not she was killed in the location that her body was recovered or if she was actually in the water and made her way to that location," Flowers said. "It’s just very early in the investigation."
Now detectives are looking into the case as a homicide which Flowers said provides both optimism and fresh perspective after five years as a missing person search.
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"If people have any other information they remember from that time, anything," he said. "If they have something about the family, anything, we’ll take whatever they can give us. Any tips, we’ll take it."
The information line with the Sheriff's Office was listed as 772-978-6259 while anonymous calls to the local Crime Stoppers network could be made at 800-273-8477.
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Corey Arwood is a breaking news reporter for TCPalm. Follow Corey on Twitter @coreyarwood, or reach him by phone at 772-978-2246.
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This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Missing woman Susy Tomassi remains positively identified; homicide investigation opens
