It was a grim ending to the disappearance of an Anna Maria Island businesswoman when William J. Cumber III admitted he killed Sabine Musil-Buehler at their Anna Maria apartment and buried her near the 81st Street beach access in Holmes Beach.
After being led to the burial site by Cumber, Manatee County Sheriff’s Office investigators found what they believed to be her skeletal remains on the beach a block from where Musil-Buehler co-owned Haley’s Motel, 8102 Gulf Drive, with her estranged husband, Tom Buehler.
On Oct. 16, the 12th District Medical Examiner’s office positively identified the remains to be those of Musil-Buehler.
Cumber confessed Oct. 15 to killing Musil-Buehler, part of a no-contest plea deal accepted by 12th Circuit Judge Diana Moreland. He faced a life sentence if convicted of second-degree murder in a trial set to begin in November.
The judge found Cumber guilty and sentenced him to 22 years and one month in the Florida Department of Corrections — but gave him the opportunity to reduce his sentence to 20 years.
The plea deal conditioned the 20-year sentence upon Cumber giving a statement about Musil-Buehler’s death and the recovery of her remains.
At about 10:30 a.m., after the court sentencing and Cumber’s statement — given by Cumber by answering questions posed by Assistant State Attorney Art Brown—Manatee County Sheriff’s Office investigators drove Cumber to Anna Maria Island to search for Musil-Buehler’s body.
Cumber — in prison garb, shackles and guarded by a deputy holding a rifle — led investigators to the spot where he said he buried the body.
He walked to a shelter/pavilion on the north side of the 81st Street beach access in Holmes Beach, near the vegetation line, and pointed out the site to authorities.
The MCSO placed green flags in the sand underneath the shelter and planned a search of 4-6 inches at a time, “which is going to take some time,” said Sheriff W. Brad Steube.
MCSO public information officer Dave Bristow said specialized equipment was brought in for the work.
Steube called the murder a “crime of passion.”
According to Cumber’s Oct. 15 statement, he and Musil-Buehler argued the evening of Nov. 4, 2008, about their relationship and his smoking at their apartment in the 200 block of Magnolia Avenue.
Musil-Buehler was about to leave him because he’d get “kind of antsy when I drink” and control issues, Cumber said.
After drinking six to eight beers that night, Cumber said he lost control, hitting Musil-Buehler with his left fist and then his right.
Cumber said he grabbed her throat and started choking her “until she wasn’t moving.”
“I couldn’t believe what I did. I couldn’t believe what I had done,” he said.
Next, he rolled Musil-Buehler’s body in a bed sheet, drug her body into her Pontiac Sunbird convertible parked outside the apartment, got a shovel from Haley’s Motel and drove to the 81st Street beach access area.
Cumber said he buried the body in a spot where they had walked together and left. He then parked Musil-Buehler’s car at the end of Magnolia Avenue, where the MCSO ticketed it the next day.
The next day, Cumber said he drove the car to the Gator Lounge in Bradenton and left the keys in the ignition, hoping the vehicle would be stolen.
He returned to Anna Maria Island on a bus to Coquina Beach and took a trolley to Anna Maria.
Steube called the investigation that uncovered, processed and evaluated the evidence against Cumber, the prime suspect since the beginning of the case, “outstanding” and one that will lead to closure for the victim’s friends and family, including Buehler and relatives from Germany.
Asked why Cumber decided to take the plea, Steube said, “Maybe the evidence was so overwhelming, he wanted to have this, instead of life in prison.”
Brown said another court date for a sentencing mitigation hearing would be set to confirm the reduced sentence.
Cumber has spent the past six years and five months incarcerated for a 13.5-year sentence for violating his probation on an unrelated 2005 arson conviction.
His Oct. 15 sentence will run concurrently with the time he has left on the prior sentence.
Brown said Tom Buehler agreed to the plea deal offered Cumber.
Cumber said a prayer at the burial site, according to Steube.
William Cumber leads Manatee County Sheriff’s Office detectives and other law enforcement to the site on the beach fronting the 81st Street access where he claims to have buried his ex-girlfriend, Sabine Musil-Buehler.
Courtesy MCSO
The media at the scene where Sabine Musil-Buehler’s body was located awaits a statement from Manatee County Sheriff Brad Steube. Islander Photo: Jack Elka
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