It was hard to recap the year that was 2015 without that feeling of sadness, grief, relief and prayers for Sabine Musil-Buehler.
It was a difficult seven years for those dear to Musil-Buehler while authorities built a case against William J. Cumber III.
A phone call from a friend in law enforcement on the morning of Oct. 15 brought chills to The Islander newsroom. Cumber was being brought from jail to the beach to show the location where he had buried Musil-Buehler.
He had confessed to the murder of his girlfriend.
He was to be paraded before the media and all who gathered at the beach to watch, and there we learned where Sabine had been laid to rest, under a shade pavilion on the beach near the motel operated by her and her estranged husband.
It was a deeply sad occasion.
Later, we heard the recorded confession and the cold voice of a calm, calculating killer. He was presumptuous that no one had discovered him on that night, carrying her body up the beach walkway.
He had to do it. He couldn’t go back to jail.
The mystery of what happened to Musil-Buehler on Nov. 4, 2008, came to an abrupt end Oct. 15.
He gave us what we needed for closure.
We were faced with reality after seven years of searching and speculating.
We were left to recall her beauty, vibrance and the free, giving spirit that had been silenced. There were no memorials, no celebration of life. Those came years earlier. But we remembered.
We looked back at the glamour photos she posed for with photographer Jack Elka, and we recalled her motel promotions, events like 1950s dances in her courtyard and nude body-painting on the beach.
Briefly, she came back to life in our memories.
And, suddenly, we knew the abuse she suffered at the hands of a brutal man.
Cumber confessed to beating and strangling Musil-Buehler and burying her body as part of a plea deal for a sentence that was reduced from life in prison to 20 years.
She once was loved, admired, befriended, accepted. She was dearly missed. Finally, we knew her fate.
So for the lessons we learned from her loss and for the closure she finally provided from her resting place on the beach, we honor her memory.
If you have a chance to help in the fight against domestic abuse, please, do it for Sabine.
Put Cumber to rest and think of her as the sun sets on Anna Maria Island one last time in 2015.
— Bonner Joy
