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Sonar Team Takes on 50-Year-Old Fort Lauderdale Cold Case

Nobody has seen Teresa Lyn Fittin since she went missing in Fort Lauderdale about 50 years ago.
Image: A missing persons poster for Teresa Lyn Fittin.
Teresa Lyn Fittin went missing in Fort Lauderdale in 1975 when she was 18. Sunshine State Sonar
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The volunteers behind Tampa-based Sunshine State Sonar hope to solve a 50-year-old mystery by finding the body of Teresa Lyn Fittin, a Fort Lauderdale high school senior who went missing in August 1975, lead diver and owner Michael Sullivan tells New Times.
click to enlarge A photo of a young woman from 1975.
Teresa Lyn Fittin went missing in Fort Lauderdale in 1975 when she was 18.
Sunshine State Sonar

Fittin, who represents Fort Lauderdale's second-oldest missing person cold case, was 18 and a student at Stranahan High School when she and her green 1966 Nash Rambler went missing, Sullivan says. She was last seen leaving her apartment at about 1 p.m. Aug. 1, 1975, to calm down after reportedly fighting with her boyfriend, Sullivan tells New Times.

Fittin worked as a server at a local beachfront hotel and dreamt of becoming an oceanographer or artist, according to the Charley Project, which profiles missing persons' cold cases. But Fittin would never realize those dreams.

Sullivan's company uses boats mounted with sonar equipment to find missing cars and people submerged in Florida's seemingly endless bodies of water. He picked up the Fittin case after finding dozens of 1950s and '60s-era cars while searching for other missing people in Broward County over the past year, he tells New Times.

The company found seven missing people in Broward County over the past year, including Libby Ann Dibenedetto most recently.

"On a lot of these dives, I'll see older cars while I'm looking for a Ford Fusion or something more modern," Sullivan tells New Times. "And I always thought, 'I'm going to get back to those cars and dive for them eventually.'"

When Sullivan learned about the Fittin case and that she was driving a '66 Rambler, he knew he had to return to Fort Lauderdale.

"Some of the cars are a stone's throw from her apartment on Davie Boulevard," he tells New Times.

His team will travel to Fort Lauderdale in June to begin the search for Fittin. Sunshine State Sonar's search area will focus on bodies of water near Davie Boulevard and expand from there.

click to enlarge A photo of a green 1966 Nash Rambler.
A photo of a 1966 Nash Rambler, the car Fittin was driving when she went missing in 1975.
Sunshine State Sonar
The only trace Fittin reportedly left behind was her wallet, found at the Riverland Branch Library down the street from her apartment. Inside, police recovered photos of Fittin's friends, which didn't point to any promising leads, Sullivan tells New Times.

If the company locates Fittin, her parents, who still reside in the Fort Lauderdale area, plan to bury her remains under a memorial bench they dedicated to her decades ago at Lauderdale Memorial Park Cemetery.