911 caller saw missing woman's car in pond the day she disappeared

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Both the Orange County Sheriff's Office and Orlando police are admitting that they knew more about a missing mother than they first let on, and that perhaps she could have been found sooner.

Carline Brumaire-Jean's body and her car were pulled from a pond near Universal Studios Florida on Monday -- not far from where she worked at Universal Resort.

Orlando's new police chief said his officers were called to that area the night the car may have gone into the water. But officers did not go into the water, nor did they use a helicopter to search the area.

The chief said that might have been different if they had known that Orange County was working a missing person's case with ties to that area.

They say they didn't find out until March 3 that Brumaire-Jean had been reported missing. She disappeared Feb. 9.

A caller to 911 said she saw Brumaire-Jean's car in the pond the day she disappeared.

"I saw a car that just went in. I didn't see it go in, but it's in like a lake," the caller said. "But there's somebody in the car."

The pond was near the Pacific Royal Hotel at Universal, where Brumaire-Jean worked.

"We just left universal. There's a hotel being built with a lot of windows and there's somebody in the car, there's definitely somebody in it," said the caller, who told the 911 operator she was not from the area.

Wednesday afternoon OPD's new chief John Mina announced an internal investigation into whether his responding traffic homicide detectives did enough to find that pond and the person they now know was Brumaire-Jean.

"To make sure we did everything possible we could've done," said Mina.

"At that time did you know the Orange County Sheriff's Office was working a missing person's case with someone who worked at universal?" Channel 9's Karla Ray asked Mina.

"No we did not," Mina said.

"Would that have changed your investigation?" Ray asked.

"It would have," said Mina.

Ray asked Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings if his deputies did enough. Brumaire-Jean and her car were in the pond for four weeks.

"Did you search that pond, did you put the helicopter up and look in that pond?" Ray asked Demings.

"Listen, it's like looking for a needle in the haystack. Orange County has thousands of bodies of water," Demings said.

The sheriff did tell Ray some new information about the family in the case.  He said the man who has been claiming he was Brumaire-Jean's husband was actually her brother.

Previous Stories:

• Family holds vigil for missing Orange Co. woman

• Woman missing for 4 weeks found dead in submerged car near Universal Studios

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