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Relatives from North Jersey who's seen social media posts helped identify Maryann Zoon, 65, who’d apparently lived alone in Fort Pierce near a stretch of road with no surrounding houses where a work crew found her decomposing remains in November.
She hadn't been reported missing, authorities said.
Although they don’t suspect any wrongdoing, detectives with the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office were trying to piece together Zoon’s final days and hours.
“That’s where our investigation turns now,” Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Brian Hester told reporters this week. “We still don’t believe that this was a homicide. There’s nothing leading us to believe that.
“But we do need to try to figure out why she was out there and how her final days and hours happened. Why was she there? Why was she…and how did she actually die?"
Zoon’s body was found in more than ankle-high grass 15 feet or so feet from a road where people rarely walked, authorities said, calling it “in the middle of nowhere."
No apparent efforts had been made to conceal the body, they said.
A coroner determined that it had been there three to five days. Toxicology tests showed no signs of drugs or alcohol, authorities said.
A 1973 Palisades Park High School graduate, Zoon had lived near the Fort Lee border and, later, in Hackensack before moving to Florida.
She’d never been in any recorded trouble, unless you count a February 2019 traffic ticket in St. Lucie County for failing to maintain a lane.
Childless, with no family in Florida, Zoon lived just off Route 1 in Fort Pierce. Neighbors said she kept to herself.
She bore distinguishing marks – a few apparently homemade tattoos, along with scars from surgical implants -- that authorities used to help describe her.
Two of the “house or garage” tattoos are flowers – one on a forearm, the other on her shoulder – while a third is apparently a Chinese symbol, they said.
Now that they’ve identified her, authorities in Florida turned to the public once more.
“We are again asking the public to help us with these details,” Hester said. “No detail is too small.
“I want to assure those watching who might know what happened to Maryann that if she died in your presence, we need to know that,” he added.
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