For 24 years, she had no name. Investigators now focused on finding her killer
For more than two decades, she was the face of a police sketch Now, Broward detectives have a name for the woman, who was found sexually assaulted and murdered in 1998, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said Thursday.
Eileen Truppner’s body was discovered by a boater on a weekend family outing in a grassy area off U.S. 27 in southwest Broward in December 1998. Investigators believe she died by strangulation no more than three days before she was found.
Identifying Truppner is only the first mystery Broward detectives solved. They’re now focused on finding her killer.
DNA cracks the case
DNA was instrumental to Truppner’s identification. The Broward Sheriff’s Office worked with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s genetic genealogy unit to track the victim’s family tree.
That’s when genealogy led them to three sisters, one of whom vanished in the late ‘90s. BSO Cold Case Homicide Detective Zack Scott then prepared to break the news to Truppner’s family.
“The upside is you’re able to give them some answers,” Scott said in a video. “The downside is that you have to tell them: ‘Listen, she was the victim of a murder.’ It’s certainly not the outcome that they wanted.”
When Nancy Truppner received Scott’s call, she thought her sister was finally found and her decades in anguish would be over. But hearing about her sister’s fate broke her.
“The way she died, when she was a kind person,” Nancy, in tears, said in a video. “She was so good, and she died the way she died. She did not deserve that.”
Years before her murder, Truppner, a mother of two, moved to South Florida from her native Puerto Rico. Though she had struggles, Truppner remained hopeful, Nancy said.
That’s why it was a shock for the family when Truppner vanished in 1998. The last time Nancy heard from her was August that year, the month she vanished, prompting the family to hire a private investigator to track her down.
The hunt for justice
Scott said he has narrowed in on several leads — including a potential suspect — and now needs to connect that suspect to Truppner. At this point, the investigation is focused on piecing together a timeline.
Broward detectives are urging people who knew Truppner or came across her from August to December 1998 to come forward.
“If they can tell us anything about her life during that four-month period, no matter how insignificant they may think it is, it could be what we’re looking for to kind of connect the dots...”
Anyone with information about Eileen Truppner’s murder should to contact Det. Zack Scott at 954-321-4214 or Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-TIPS (8477).
