How DNA Solved Susan Gale Poole’s 48-Year Mystery

Transcript

A Life Lost In Silence

Thomas 2025 1 0:00

My name is Thomas… and this is Human Wreckage. Tonight, we begin with a woman whose life quietly vanished into the cracks of America’s forgotten highways. Her name was Susan Gale Poole—and for decades, no one could say with certainty where she went, who took her, or how a young woman could simply disappear without leaving a trail behind. Susan wasn’t famous. She wasn’t wealthy. She didn’t live a life that would make headlines. And that, tragically, may be the very reason her story slipped through the cracks. She was a young woman with dreams that stretched beyond the town she was born in, with hopes of building something more than what fate had handed her. Like so many people in the late 1970s and early 1980s, she drifted from place to place, chasing stability, chasing love, chasing the promise that tomorrow would finally be better than yesterday. But on the day Susan vanished, that promise was violently stolen. There was no dramatic crime scene. No blood. No broken glass. No screaming witnesses. Just a woman who never came home—and a family who never stopped waiting. As days turned into months… and months into years… Susan Gale Poole became another missing person file buried beneath thousands of others. A name typed on aging paperwork. A black-and-white photo tucked inside a dusty folder. A life reduced to a question mark. What happened to Susan? Did she leave on her own? Was she running from something—or someone? Or did she cross paths with someone who saw her not as a human being… but as an opportunity? This case isn’t just about a disappearance. It’s about how easily a person can be erased when no one is watching. It’s about how predators rely on isolation, on vulnerability, and on the belief that no one will notice when someone like Susan is gone. Tonight, we’re going to pull Susan’s story out of the shadows. We’ll follow the fragments of her last known days. We’ll examine the people she trusted. And we’ll look closely at the dark possibilities that law enforcement once whispered—but never proved. Because behind every cold case file is a real person who laughed, who cried, who loved, and who mattered. Susan Gale Poole mattered. And on Human Wreckage, we refuse to let her be forgotten.

Jane Doe Found In The Mangroves

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A 15-year-old girl vanished from her friend's apartment in Florida. Her clothes and purse were still there. In June 1974, her skeletal remains were found bound with wire to a tree in a mangrove swamp. For 48 years, no one knew who she was. Then DNA revealed the truth—and connected her to a serial killer cop who had been dead for 27 years.

Susan’s Last Days Before Christmas

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December 1972. Broward County, Florida. Fifteen-year-old Susan Poole was living between two worlds. Her family's trailer park near Fort Lauderdale. And a friend's apartment nearby. She was a high school dropout. A teenager who sometimes skipped class, sometimes hitchhiked, sometimes stayed out late. But she wasn't someone who would disappear without a trace. Just before Christmas 1972, Susan vanished from her friend's apartment. Her clothes were still there. Her pocketbook was still on the couch. "I knew something was wrong when I saw her purse," her sister Patti would say decades later. Susan Poole was gone. "Nobody knew where she went," Detective Bill Springer would later explain. Her family reported her missing, but in 1972, teenagers like Susan—troubled, independent, known to run away for a day or two—didn't always get the attention they deserved. Police assumed she'd come back. Days passed. Then weeks. Then months. Susan never came home.

Burnt Bridges And A Wire Binding

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June 16, 1974. Palm Beach County, Florida. A man and his sons were searching for driftwood in a remote, swampy area called Burnt Bridges along Highway A1A. Instead, they found something horrific. Human remains. Scattered bones. Scraps of clothing. And a skeleton bound with wire to a mangrove tree. "She was tied up in the mangroves with wire to a tree," Detective Springer would say nearly 50 years later. "She was skeletal remains, totally nothing left of her except bones." Investigators tried everything to identify her. They created composite sketches. They searched missing persons reports. They waited for someone to recognize her. No one did. In 1974, they didn't have the DNA technology that exists today. The case went cold almost immediately. The girl remained nameless. A ghost. A question mark in the mangroves.

Genetic Genealogy Breaks The Case

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For nearly 48 years, she was known only as Jane Doe. In 2015, investigators submitted DNA to a national missing persons database. Nothing. In 2019, they prepared a new facial reconstruction. No one recognized her. The case seemed hopeless. Whoever she was, whatever had happened to her, the answers had been buried with her bones in 1974. And then, in December 2021, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office sent the skeletal remains to Othram—a Texas forensics lab specializing in genetic genealogy. Othram built a comprehensive DNA profile. In March 2022, their genealogy team returned investigative leads to the sheriff's office. Detectives followed the leads. They contacted potential family members. They found Susan Poole's mother. She was in her 90s. She had been waiting 50 years for answers about her daughter. Investigators collected a DNA sample from her. It was a match. June 2, 2022. Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. Detective Bill Springer stood before reporters and announced what the family had waited half a century to hear. The girl found bound to a tree in 1974 was Susan Gale Poole. Born February 12, 1957. Fifteen years old when she disappeared just before Christmas 1972. "The family was happy to know what happened," Springer said. "It's been a long time waiting to see what happened to their sister." But the story didn't end there.

Gerard Schaefer And His Pattern

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Because Springer believed he knew who killed her. Gerard John Schaefer. A former sheriff's deputy. A former police officer. A man who used his badge to hunt young women. A serial killer who had been dead for 27 years. In 1972—the same year Susan Poole disappeared—Gerard Schaefer was working as a deputy for the Martin County Sheriff's Office. He was 26 years old. He had a badge. He had a patrol car. He had authority. And he used all of it to prey on young women. July 1972. Five months before Susan disappeared. Two teenage girls—Nancy Trotter, 18, and Paula Sue Wells, 17—were hitchhiking near the beach when they encountered an on-duty sheriff's deputy. Gerard Schaefer. He told them hitchhiking was illegal. It wasn't. "He called into the station on his radio and said he had two girls and asked if it was okay to take us home," Trotter later told reporters. "They said to him, 'OK,' so we got in the back seat of the police car." But Schaefer didn't take them home. He drove them to a remote wooded area. He tied them to trees. He put nooses around their necks. He told them he'd be back later. Then he left. The girls managed to escape. They reported him immediately. Schaefer was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and false imprisonment. He was released on $15,000 bail. September 27, 1972. Fort Lauderdale. While out on bail, Schaefer struck again. Two more teenage girls: Susan Place, 17, and Georgia Jessup, 16. They told Place's mother they were going to the beach with an older man named "Gerry Shepherd." Place's mother was suspicious. She wrote down the license plate number of his blue-green Datsun. The girls were never seen alive again. April 1, 1973. Hutchinson Island. A father and son were searching for aluminum cans when they found decomposed, mutilated, decapitated remains in the woods. Susan Place. Georgia Jessup. The license plate led investigators to Gerard Schaefer. When they searched a trunk stored at Schaefer's mother's home in Fort Lauderdale, they found: The victims' jewelry Human teeth Women's clothing A passport Personal effects belonging to at least six missing females Approximately 50 pages of handwritten notes graphically describing murders, torture, and mutilation Schaefer was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder. In October 1973, he was convicted. Two life sentences. Authorities suspected he was connected to up to 30 murders. But he was only convicted of two. Robert Stone, the prosecutor who convicted Schaefer, called him "the most sexually deviant person I had ever seen. He made Ted Bundy look like a Boy Scout." Schaefer became known as the "Killer Cop," the "Hangman," and the "Butcher of Blind Creek." His method was consistent: lure young women—often hitchhikers—using his badge. Drive them to remote areas along Highway A1A. Tie them to trees with wire or rope. Put nooses around their necks. Torture them. Kill them. The tree where he killed his victims became known in South Florida as the "Devil Tree." While in prison, Schaefer maintained his innocence publicly. But privately, in letters to his former high school girlfriend Sondra London, he boasted of killing more than 30 women and girls. He wrote graphic "killer fiction" stories—detailed accounts of torture and murder that investigators believed were confessions disguised as fiction. He filed frivolous lawsuits against anyone who called him a serial killer. And he waited for parole, scheduled for 2016. December 3, 1995. Florida State Prison. Gerard Schaefer was found dead in his cell. He had been stabbed over 40 times—in the face, head, neck, and body. His throat was slashed. His right eye was destroyed. Several ribs were fractured. Fellow inmate Vincent Rivera was convicted of the murder in 1999. Schaefer died at age 49. He never revealed the full extent of his crimes. Families of missing women lost their last chance for answers. Or so they thought.

Why Detectives Suspect Schaefer

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When Detective Springer identified Susan Poole's remains in 2022, he immediately suspected Gerard Schaefer. The evidence was circumstantial but compelling: Susan disappeared in December 1972—just three months after Schaefer killed Place and Jessup She was found in Palm Beach County, along Highway A1A—Schaefer's hunting ground She was bound with wire to a tree—Schaefer's signature method She was known to hitchhike—Schaefer's preferred targets Schaefer lived in Broward County, where Susan lived "Because of the similar way in which those teens were killed," Springer said, "I believe Schaefer could have been involved in Poole's death." But Schaefer had been dead for 27 years. There would be no confession. No trial. No definitive proof. Only suspicion, method, and timing. Springer is still looking for evidence. He's trying to reach three of Susan's friends who lived near her in 1972. "The three could help us find the missing piece and give her family closure," the sheriff's office said. Springer wants to know: Did Susan ever mention knowing someone named Gerard? Did she confide in anyone about a relationship with a police officer? Did she frequently hitchhike along Highway A1A? The answers might still be out there. December 1972. Susan Poole, 15, vanished from her friend's apartment in Florida. Her clothes and purse were left behind. In June 1974, her skeletal remains were found bound with wire to a mangrove tree. For 48 years, no one knew who she was. Then, in 2022, DNA matched her to her 90-year-old mother. Investigators now believe Susan was a victim of Gerard Schaefer—a serial killer sheriff's deputy who was convicted of two murders but suspected of killing 30. Schaefer died in prison in 1995. He never confessed. But 27 years after his death, Susan's bones finally spoke. And after half a century of silence, her family finally knows what happened.

Unfinished Truth And A Plea

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Susan Gale Poole did not disappear because she was invisible. She disappeared because the world, for a moment, failed to look closely enough. When someone like Susan vanishes, there’s no final chapter. There is no courtroom verdict. No grave to visit. Only unanswered questions that echo through the lives of those who loved her. Somewhere, a truth still exists locked inside memories, buried in forgotten places, or held by someone who has stayed silent for far too long. Cases like Susan’s don’t go cold because the victims stop mattering. They go cold because time moves on… and people grow comfortable with uncertainty. But uncertainty is not justice. And silence is not closure. If Susan’s story has taught us anything, it’s that predators thrive in the shadows and those shadows grow deeper when no one speaks. Someone out there knows something. A name. A place. A moment that never quite sat right. A detail that has been carried quietly for years. Even the smallest piece of information can be the crack that lets the truth finally break through. Susan Gale Poole was more than a missing woman on a faded poster. She was a daughter. A friend. A human being whose life did not end the moment she vanished it was simply interrupted. And until the truth is known, her story remains unfinished. If you have any information about the disappearance of Susan Gale Poole, no matter how insignificant it may seem, we urge you to contact your local authorities or the appropriate cold case investigators. Justice doesn’t always come quickly… but it can still come. My name is Thomas. And this has been Human Wreckage.