BRUNSWICK, Georgia (AP) — Georgia police say a car similar to the one driven by a wealthy New York couple missing for more than four decades has been found in a south Georgia pond near the hotel where they were last seen.

Retired oil executive Charles Romer, 73, and his wife, Catherine, 75, disappeared with their 1978 Lincoln in the spring of 1980. The couple, from Scarsdale, New York, were returning home from Miami Beach, Florida, and were checking into a Holiday Inn in Brunswick. , Georgia. Hotel employees reported their losses, worried that their beds were not filled.

Glynn County police said Friday that a team from Florida using sonar to find missing objects discovered a vehicle matching the description of Romers’ vehicle submerged in a pond near Interstate 95. It was stated that a human bone was also found in the vehicle.

The pond is being drained and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is assisting with the investigation.

“There is currently no conclusion regarding the identity of the remains found,” police said in a statement.

The statement did not speculate on what might have happened to the Romers, but law officials expressed concerns about malicious activity at the time of their disappearance. Catherine Romer was wearing about $81,000 worth of jewelry at the time, and police theorized that thieves were burglarizing motel rooms, the Associated Press previously reported.

“We all felt from experience that these people were kidnapped and killed for their jewelry, and that the vehicle and the bodies were hidden in the water,” George Baker, a rescue diver who searched for the car for years, told the AP. 1998.

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