Sabine Musil-Buehler “disappeared” the night Barack Obama defeated John McCain and won the presidency.
In the ensuing days, those who knew the island businesswoman and activist wondered why they didn’t hear from Musil-Buehler — why wasn’t she cheering on for the Obama-Biden victory?
Only one person knew why Musil-Buehler wasn’t at the Nov. 4-5 post-election parties or trumpeting about Obama’s “Hope” — and hopes of her own.
That person was Musil-Buehler’s boyfriend at the time, a prison parolee named William J. Cumber III. He had worked at Haley’s Motel, which she co-owned, and they lived together on Magnolia Avenue in Anna Maria.
Cumber kept a secret for seven years and didn’t confess to killing Musil-Buehler until 2015, when he was facing trial for her murder.
He was in prison nearly all those years.
Her body was buried on the beach not far from Haley’s the entire time.
Her friends and family wondered all that time.
And law enforcement searched the island, digging up long stretches of beach and searching properties on anonymous tips.
Cumber closed the mystery with his confession but, five years later, the loss remains.
In 2015, the newspaper posthumously named Sabine Musil-Buehler the Islander of the Year.
On the anniversary of her death — Nov. 4, 2008 — we offer again the tribute penned by publisher Bonner Joy:
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 in the moonlight.
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 again think of her as the sun sets on Anna Maria Island.