Woman found dead with men’s belt around neck in 1971 identified, Florida cops say
More than five decades after the body of a young woman was discovered wrapped in carpet under a bridge in central Florida, she finally has a name.
On February 19, 1971, a woman’s body was found floating in Shady Brook Creek under Interstate 75 in Sumter County, according to an Oct. 29 news release and press conference from the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office.
Based on the level of decomposition, officials estimated she had been dumped from the overpass at least a month earlier, according to the release.
The woman was clothed in matching green pants and a shirt, as well as a green and yellow shawl, deputies said. She wore a wristwatch and a gold ring on her ring finger.
There was also a men’s size 36 leather belt wrapped around her neck, according to the sheriff’s office.
The mysterious brown-eyed woman was relatively short, between 5 feet, 2 inches, and 5 feet, 5 inches, and weighed between 110 and 120 pounds at the time of her death, officials said. She was somewhere between 17 and 24 years old, but examination of her body found she had had at least two children.
“During the course of the investigation, the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office consulted with numerous agencies and laboratories — both public and private — to assist in identifying the victim through forensic analysis,” the sheriff’s office said. “However, the state of her remains were problematic in providing a viable profile. Multiple persons of interest were interviewed, and numerous missing person cases were compared and ultimately ruled out.”
The case went cold.
The woman’s body was exhumed in 1986 for additional genetic testing, resulting in a facial reconstruction that could be shared, but it ultimately went nowhere, deputies said.
In 1992, the case of “Little Miss Lake Panasoffkee” was featured on ”Unsolved Mysteries,” and while the show led to calls from viewers, the information once again hit a dead end, according to the sheriff’s office.
In February, the sheriff’s office acquired a fingerprint identification system called Storm ABIS, or Automated Biometric Identification System, according to the release.
Finally, the woman’s prints could be checked against a database, and it was a success.
The woman was determined to be Maureen Minor Rowan, known to those who loved her as “Cookie,” the sheriff’s office said.
Rowan was born in 1949 as Maureen Minor, making her 21 years old when she died, according to the release. She had never been reported as a missing person, despite being a mother of two.
At the time of her death, she was estranged from her husband, Charles Rowan, who went by the name Emery, deputies said.
She lived in Tampa in 1971, according to deputies.
Her death was ruled a homicide, and Charles Rowan has been identified as a “person of interest,” but no arrests have been made, the sheriff’s office said.
The family had connections in Tampa, Jacksonville, Gainesville and Inigma, Georgia, and anyone with information about her whereabouts before her death is encouraged to contact the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office.
“For nearly 55 years, our family lived without answers about what happened to my mother. We now know that she was ‘Little Miss Lake Panasoffkee,’” her family said in a statement. “But she was more. She was a mother, a daughter, a sister and a woman who deserved a full life. We are deeply grateful to the Sumter County detectives and the local community who never gave up on her. Now that she has been identified, our family can begin to heal. We ask anyone who has any information on who killed our mother to please come forward.”
Lake Panasoffkee is in west-central Florida, about a 55-mile drive northwest from Orlando.
This story was originally published October 29, 2025 at 1:32 PM with the headline "Woman found dead with men’s belt around neck in 1971 identified, Florida cops say."
