No one may ever know exactly how Sabine Musil-Buehler died — except her killer.
And it appears the plea deal for confessed murderer William J. Cumber won’t be re-visited despite inconsistencies between an autopsy report released April 28 and Cumber’s October 2015 statement.
Assistant State Attorney Art Brown said May 10 there wasn’t a “legal way” to reopen Cumber’s 2015 plea agreement.
Cumber’s sentence was reduced to 20 years from a plea for a 22-year, one-month sentence after he cooperated with the state.
According to an Oct. 15, 2015, transcript of the plea deal, to get the 20-year sentence, Cumber had to give a statement of facts “of the exact circumstances surrounding the death” of girlfriend Musil-Buehler and to help locate her body.
Cumber agreed and gave a statement.
Cumber said he struck Musil-Buehler twice in the head and strangled her Nov. 4, 2008, at an apartment they shared in the 200 block of Magnolia Avenue in Anna Maria.
Medical examiner Daniel L. Schultz concluded in his March 23 autopsy blunt trauma and strangulation caused Musil-Buehler’s death but, he said, strangulation is listed only as a result of Cumber’s statement.
“Because of the timeline and disintegration, it is not definitively a fractured hyoid bone, though I agree she was probably strangled,” Schultz said.
The medical examiner determined Musil-Buehler was badly beaten. Seven ribs were broken and her sternum crushed.
Cumber, on the other hand, said he hit her in the head “just two times” with his fists, “left first and then I hit her with a right,” he said, answering Assistant State Attorney Art Brown’s October 2015 inquiries.
Brown said May 10, “The mere fact that (Cumber) left out the blunt trauma to her chest is not a basis for overturning the plea.”
Another revelation from the autopsy was finding that Musil-Buehler’s hands had been bound behind her back.
Brown said he reads Schultz’s report to say the hands could have been bound.
The medical examiner was more definite.
“The orientation of her hands indicates her being bound — they wouldn’t have laid the way they did if she wasn’t,” Schultz said.
Schultz said Musil-Buehler’s skeletal remains were found intact and face down.
The gravesite was about a block from a Haley’s Motel, 8102 Gulf Drive, Holmes Beach, which Musil-Buehler owned with estranged husband Tom Buehler.
Cumber said he acted alone and choked her until she wasn’t moving, drove her body to the beach access on 81st Street in Holmes Beach, dug a hole and placed her in it.
After making the statement, he led authorities to the sandy grave under a pavilion on the beach.
Schultz and anthropologist Maranda Kles unearthed Musil-Buehler’s remains.
Schultz said, “If she was unconscious she could have been” buried alive. Her skeleton indicated no movement.
Cumber worked at Haley’s Motel in 2005 and 2008. He told authorities he picked up the shovel he used to bury Musil-Buehler from the motel.
Two weeks after Musil-Buehler went missing, arson at the motel caused $250,000 in damage, according to state fire marshal Detective Jack Shireman’s investigative report.
Cumber was the only suspect/person of interest in the arson investigation.
Brown did not ask Cumber about the arson at the hotel. It was not relevant to the homicide and the fire marshal closed the case without charges in 2011.
Cumber is currently incarcerated at Lake Correctional Institution near Orlando with an earliest possible release date of October 2029.