SUMTER COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) — Deputies in Sumter County announced Wednesday that “Little Miss Lake Panasoffkee” has been identified as a Tampa woman nearly 55 years after her murder.
Investigators said they used advanced latent print analysis to identify “Little Miss Lake Panasoffkee” as 21-year-old Maureen L. Minor Roward, known as “Cookie” to friends and family.
On Feb. 19, 1971, Sumter County deputies discovered a badly decomposed body of a woman floating in Shady Brook Creek at Lake Panasoffkee under the Interstate 75 overpass.
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Investigators said the woman was found wrapped in a carpet with a leather belt wrapped around her neck. Deputies believed the woman had been dumped off the overpass about a month earlier…