Overview
- Investigators matched latent prints from 1971 to a 1970 Hillsborough County arrest using the STORM system, confirming the victim as Maureen “Cookie” L. Minor Rowan.
- Rowan was 21, a mother of two, and living in Tampa at the time; she was never reported missing, and her prints from the 1970 arrest were not uploaded to the state database until 2013.
- Her body was found on Feb. 19, 1971 under the I-75 bridge at Lake Panasoffkee, wrapped in carpet with a men’s belt around her neck, and was believed to have been dumped about a month earlier.
- Deputies named her estranged husband, Charles Emery Rowan Sr., as a person of interest based on his behavior around the time of her disappearance; he died in 2015 and has not been labeled a suspect.
- The Sumter County Sheriff’s Office is rebuilding Rowan’s final timeline and asks anyone with knowledge of the Rowans’ ties to Tampa, Gainesville, Jacksonville, or Enigma, Georgia to call 352-569-1915 or Crimeline at 800-423-TIPS.