Over the past seven years, Manatee County Sheriff’s Office detectives, crime technicians and countless others gathered, examined and evaluated evidence trying to solve the missing person/murder case of Sabine Musil-Buehler.
The timeline of events begins Nov. 4, 2008 — William J. Cumber III tells Manatee County Sheriff’s investigators he last saw Musil-Buehler Nov. 4. They lived together in the 200 block of Magnolia Avenue in Anna Maria. Cumber told deputies Musil-Buehler left the residence after they argued over his smoking a cigarette.
· Nov. 6, 2008 — Musil-Buehler’s car was located with portions of the seats and carpeting removed and human blood on the seats and driver’s seat belt. An MCSO patrol officer stopped Robert Corona of Bradenton driving the vehicle without taillights.
· Nov. 6, 2008 — MCSO notified Musil-Buehler’s husband Tom Buehler that his estranged wife’s car was found. He filed a missing person’s report.
· Nov. 16, 2008 — Fire engulfed a building at Haley’s Motel, a Holmes Beach resort owned and operated by Buehler and Musil-Buehler. Cumber was identified as a suspect but the state fire marshal closed the case without an arrest. Damages were estimated at $250,000.
· November 2008 — The MCSO dug on the beach off Magnolia Avenue, near where Musil-Buehler’s Pontiac was ticketed Nov. 5, 2008, before police identified the vehicle as part of the missing person case.
· May 14, 2009 — Cumber is sentenced to 13.5 years after violating his probation on an unrelated arson, a 2005 conviction for setting a former girlfriend’s Bradenton home on fire. He violated the probation when he was found traveling out of county.
· Oct. 15, 2012 — Sheriff W. Brad Steube announced the murder charge against Cumber.
· July-August 2011 — The MCSO searched with cadaver-sniffing dogs and ground-penetrating radar near Willow Avenue after Musil-Buehler’s purse was found near the beach.
· March 2014 — The MCSO searched another area after investigators learned of a cellphone ping.
· September 2014 — The MCSO searched near Galati Yacht Sales in Anna Maria after an undergarment was found during a water main project.
• Oct. 15, 2015 — William Cumber pleaded no contest and confessed to killing Sabine Musil-Buehler. He then led the MCSO to the beach near 81st Street in Holmes Beach, where he buried her body.
The 38-minute audio of William Cumber’s confession and the video of him showing him leading law enforcement to the location of Sabine Musil-Buehler’s burial site are on The Islander website.