Remains of teen found in Naples 33 years after she was buried near Jacksonville

FORT MYERS, Fla. A family thought they buried the body of their 17-year-old daughter in 1984.

But a recent letter from the District IV Medical Examiner’s office stated Tina Louise Lovett’s remains weren’t buried together.

Investigators believe Lovett was a victim of a violent murder after her body was discovered in a wooden area near Jacksonville.

“Her body was so decomposed that the coroner couldn’t come up with a cause of death,” Lovett’s aunt and Naples resident Alice Heron said.

The family had a closed casket funeral in 1984 surrounded by close family and friends.

“Her schoolmates, she was going into her senior year, the cemetery that day was filled with them, all in tears,” Heron said.

The letter provided a timeline of where Lovett’s skull and upper body had been over the last three decades.

The timeline revealed the body had been under examination from 2005 to 2016 in Naples with Dr. Heather Walsh-Haney, an anthropology instructor at Florida Gulf Coast University.

“It said FGCU, but then I found out Monday it was actually a lab here on Domestic Avenue, that this person who works at FGCU has and that’s where they’ve been. They assured me they were secure,” Heron said.

While the family has many unanswered questions, they are attempting to raise money to put Lovett’s remains in one final resting place.

“We’re working to get the body together again in the grave. We can have a service and finally get some closure on this,” Heron said.

WINK News reached out to FGCU for comment but they stated they didn’t know anything about Lovett’s remains.