Cops find remains during search for Hallandale Beach woman who vanished 8 years ago

Investigators have found human remains while searching a Miami Gardens field for the corpse of a Hallandale Beach woman who vanished eight years ago.

It is unclear if the remains are those of Lynda Meier, who went missing after leaving her Hallandale Beach apartment at 5 a.m. June 4, 2010, police said. The medical examiner’s office must work to determine the identity of the remains.

Thursday afternoon Hallandale Beach police released a statement saying body parts had been found, but it still remained unclear if they belonged to Meier.

“During this investigation, investigators located what appears to be human remains near the area in which Meier was last believed to have been,” Hallandale Beach spokeswoman Ra Shana Dabney-Donovan said in a news release.

All week, Hallandale police and Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents had been searching a wooded property in the 3900 block of Northwest 215th Street in Miami Gardens. According to a search warrant filed in Miami-Dade criminal court, investigators received a tip from a confidential “source” about the body being dumped in a tree preserve there.

The remains were discovered some time after 5 p.m. Wednesday, about three feet underground in the small wooded area between a construction site and a wood-framed home, according to Osvy Rivera, who works for the Premiere Design and Building Group at the construction site.



The home is a few hundred yards off of Northwest 215th Street and just east of the giant construction site.

Rivera said Hallandale Beach and Miami-Dade police were there along with FDLE and CSI investigators.



On Thursday morning, investigators were looking at the remains on a table under a small blue awning and between some oak trees.

Lynda Meier’s disappearance has vexed detectives for years. The pharmacy school graduate from Nova Southeastern University had plans to get her mother in Aventura and then take her to a doctor’s appointment. She never showed up.

Police said that surveillance video showed Meier leaving her apartment at 5:17 a.m. Two days after she went missing, her maroon Cadillac Escalade was found abandoned near The Gardens apartments in the 13400 block of Northwest 30th Avenue in Miami Gardens.

At the time, police questioned two ex-convicts, Antwan Kennedy and Dallas King, one of whom she met as a volunteer working with youth. The men told police that they had contact with her and tried to use her credit cards and debit cards.

Police never were able to connect the men to Meier’s disappearance.

The investigation led to several searches including a Miami Gardens canal. The reward increased to $75,000.

Then in June 2013, new information led police to search a seven-acre wooded area in Opa-locka. Police searched the the area around 1790 Service Rd. using bulldozers and cadaver dogs, but didn’t find anything. Police said the tip came from people who were afraid of King and didn’t want to talk. King was no longer a threat because he was serving two life sentences for armed robbery, the chief said at the time.

This story was originally published December 13, 2018 at 11:54 AM.