American Notes Florida

Adelaide Stiles, 60, left her home in Fort Lauderdale one day eleven years ago to take a vacation with her boyfriend Michael Burnett. She was never seen again. Ever since, Burnett, 57, a swindler with a long record, has been suspected of killing the wealthy divorcee after embezzling her money. But police were unable to tie him to the disappearance until Vernon Frazier, an inmate in a San Diego jail, learned that Burnett had become a protected FBI informant playing a crucial part in municipal bribery investigations in New York City and Chicago.

Last week Fort Lauderdale detectives finally charged Burnett, Frazier and an accomplice with the murder of Stiles. The source for the long-sought evidence was Frazier, who admitted to police that the trio lured Stiles onto a yacht, bludgeoned and shot her, then dismembered her corpse and fed it to sharks.