SUMTER COUNTY, Fla. – The victim of one of the strangest and longest-running cold cases in Florida has been identified nearly 55 years after her body was found in Sumter County.
Sumter County Sheriff Patrick Breeden announced the news in the “Little Miss Lake Panasoffkee” case on Wednesday, alongside the lead investigator, Capt. Jon Galvin of the Criminal Investigations Division.
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According to reporting from News4JAX sister station WKMG in Orlando, the case dates back to Feb. 19, 1971, when a couple of hitchhikers discovered a woman’s body under the Lake Panasoffkee Bridge on Interstate 75.
She was found with a man’s leather belt wrapped around her neck and a section of carpet covering her body.
At the time, the body was already heavily decomposed, having been sunken in the water there for at least a month before being found.
With no one to claim her, the body was buried in a Jane Doe marked grave in Wildwood’s Oak Grove Cemetery, deputies said, though she was later unearthed for re-examination.
Despite numerous attempts at fingerprint and DNA testing, detectives were never able to identify the woman, but the unusual circumstances around her death earned her a moniker from the community: “Little Miss Lake Panasoffkee.”
“Today, ‘Little Miss Lake Panasoffkee’ finally has a name,” Breeden said during Wednesday’s news conference. “She has been identified as Maureen L. Minor Rowan, also known to her friends and family as ‘Cookie.’”
The sheriff also announced that Rowan’s estranged husband, Charles Emery Rowan Sr., also known as “Emery,” is considered a person of interest in her death. He died in 2015.
“Cookie has never been forgotten,” Breeden said in a message to the woman’s family. “I hope this gets you closer to finding the closure you need and helps provide some answers that you never had.”
How she got her name back
Galvin explained that the key to the identification was advanced fingerprint technology through the state-of-the-art STORM system, which succeeded where previous methods failed.
Galvin has had a lifelong connection to the case.
“My father worked on this case,” Galvin said. “I grew up with this case. And I’m grateful to be able to honor their legacies by helping to finally bring the name to perhaps our most well-known cold case victim, ‘Little Miss Lake Panasoffkee.’”
Galvin said he thought it would be DNA and genealogical data that would solve the case, but it was a return to fingerprint basics that led to the breakthrough.
Galvin explained that although they were able to retrieve the woman’s fingerprints during her autopsy, she was so decomposed that they were not good quality.
Despite that, investigators through the years tried numerous times to send off her fingerprints to compare with databases, the last attempt being in 2006, when they were sent to the FBI.
They never found a match.
“The sheriff and I both grew up here, and this is one of those cases that everybody in the community knew about,” Galvin said. “This impacted our community greatly.”
In 2018, detectives began partnering with private labs that could use advanced DNA technology to possibly uncover more clues in the case.
They tried numerous attempts through various private labs, but the state of her remains proved problematic in providing a viable profile.
But after the department began working with the STORM system, one of Sumter County’s fingerprint examiners -- who Galvin called one of the best in the state -- decided to try again.
This time, the woman’s prints matched the 1970 arrest of “Cookie” Rowan, who had been charged in Hillsborough County with passing a worthless check.
Galvin said they later learned that Cookie’s prints from that case had not been uploaded to the FDLE’s database until 2013.
Who was Cookie Rowan?
According to new details they have uncovered since her identification, Galvin said Cookie was 21 years old when she was killed and was the mother of two young children.
Her last known address was in Tampa with her husband, Emery.
She was 5 feet, 2 inches tall, weighed about 115 pounds, had dark-colored hair and brown eyes.
When she was found, she was wearing plaid green pants, a matching solid-green shirt, and a shawl with green-and-yellow print. She also had a Baylor wristwatch on her left wrist and a yellow-gold ring with a clear stone on her left ring finger.
Since Cookie was identified on Oct. 1, Galvin said investigators have been looking into her life in the months leading up to her death.
He said they learned Cookie and Emery had become estranged, separating after a tumultuous marriage -- not long before her death.
Galvin said the couple had ties to Gainesville, Jacksonville, and Tampa and also to Enigma, Georgia. He did not indicate what those ties were.
Emery never reported his wife missing, and her children never knew what had happened to her.
“What they knew was that their mom left and never came back,” Galvin said.
Now, they are eager for answers, and investigators are still working to build a more detailed timeline of the last few months of Cookie’s life.
They’re hoping the public can help.
“We are fighting an uphill battle at this point, almost 55 years later,” Galvin said.
They are asking anyone who knew Cookie or Emery at all to call the tip line at 352-569-1915 or email sumtertips@sumtercountysheriff.org. You can also remain anonymous by using the Central Florida Crimeline at 800-423-TIPS (8477).