{"id":277226,"date":"2026-05-19T21:59:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T21:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/277226\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T21:59:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T21:59:12","slug":"trukita-scotts-remains-found-in-south-florida-12-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/277226\/","title":{"rendered":"Trukita Scott’s remains found in South Florida 12 years later"},"content":{"rendered":"

The remains of a mother who disappeared 12 years ago<\/a> were recently uncovered at a South Florida home, Fort Lauderdale Police announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n

On June 25, 2014, Trukita Scott never made it to pick up her son and daughter from daycare. For days, her family heard nothing from the 24-year-old mother. And for years after, they searched from West Palm Beach to the Florida Keys, but they never found Scott, nor answers about what happened to her.<\/p>\n

Her family always believed that a man she\u2019d been dating, Carl Watts Jr., had answers, relatives previously told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.<\/p>\n

Now serving a 45-year prison sentence in his wife Shandell Harris\u2019s 2022 murder<\/a>, Watts made \u201cadmissions\u201d during recent court proceedings to his involvement in Scott\u2019s disappearance, former Fort Lauderdale Police Homicide Sgt. Steve Novak, now a Broward Sheriff\u2019s Office Homicide detective, announced Tuesday. Watts gave them an address of a home in Miami\u2019s Little Haiti neighborhood to search, and there they exhumed her remains on May 12.<\/p>\n

At a news conference Tuesday, Fort Lauderdale Police Lt. Robert Smith recounted speaking with Scott\u2019s family when they first reported her missing. A new road patrol officer at the time, Smith said he had a \u201cgut feeling\u201d that something wasn\u2019t right about the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething at that time just felt off,\u201d Smith recalled.<\/p>\n

\u2018Where is Trukita?\u2019 Missing woman\u2019s family has lived with that question for 8 years. A recent arrest in an unrelated crime brings the pain back<\/a><\/p>\n

Early on in the missing person investigation, Novak said they were already focusing on Watts, who was the father of Scott\u2019s son C.J. He was interviewed numerous times over the years. He maintained he did not know what happened to Scott or where she was, Novak said.<\/p>\n

Scott\u2019s car was found burned and abandoned on July 1, 2024, along Interstate 95. The car had been set on fire in an attempt to hide or destroy evidence, Novak said, but only a small part of the car had burned. Those details were never released publicly before.<\/p>\n

Detectives investigated all tips and leads they received from witnesses, of people claiming to have seen Scott or information about people possibly involved, but none were fruitful, Novak said. But a credible witness came forward six months after Scott\u2019s disappearance.<\/p>\n

\"SteveSteve Novak of the Broward Sheriff’s Office Homicide Unit speaks during a press conference at the Fort Lauderdale Police Department on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, announcing the recent discovery of Trukita Scott’s remains. (Carline Jean\/South Florida Sun Sentinel)<\/p>\n

The witness told detectives details that only law enforcement knew at the time, including that Scott\u2019s car had been set on fire. The witness said the crime happened at a Budget Inn and that Scott was possibly buried in the Little Haiti area, Novak said at the news conference.<\/p>\n

Law enforcement scoured that area of Miami previously but found nothing.<\/p>\n

On the last day she was seen, Scott met with Watts at the Budget Inn in the 1300 block of South Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale, the investigation found, partly through cellphone records.<\/p>\n

At 3:45 p.m., the activity on her cellphone stopped.<\/p>\n

Novak said he could not provide further information about the recent statements Watts made that led to Scott\u2019s remains being recovered, other than that he made them within the past month. Whether anyone else was involved is part of the ongoing investigation, he said.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn undated photo of Trukita Scott is displayed during a news conference at the Fort Lauderdale Police Department on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, announcing the recent discovery of her remains. Scott went missing in June 2014. (Carline Jean\/South Florida Sun Sentinel)<\/p>\n

On May 12, investigators unearthed Scott\u2019s remains in the yard of a home in the 7500 block of Northeast First Court in Miami, which was abandoned at the time Scott was buried there but is now lived in.<\/p>\n

Law enforcement officers from departments in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, as well as the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner\u2019s Office and the Florida Gulf Coast University Forensic Anthropology Team participated in the recovery. The remains were confirmed to be Scott\u2019s using dental records.<\/p>\n

Dr. Heather Walsh-Haney, forensic anthropologist<\/a> and FGCU\u2019s Justice Studies department chair, said the excavation took nearly from sunrise to sunset. The soil where the remains were found was analyzed, and Walsh-Haney will work with the Medical Examiner\u2019s Office to continue to investigate and document the remains, she said at the news conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, it\u2019s all about honoring Trukita,\u201d she said. \u201cA daughter, a mother, a young woman whose life was taken far too soon. And my commitment \u2026 is to make sure that we have scientific findings that contribute to truth and justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

It will take time for the Medical Examiner\u2019s Office to determine the cause of Scott\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Charles Scott, Scott\u2019s father, had a message for parents: \u201cJust stay in your kid\u2019s life \u2026 When you see something\u2019s not right, then you can do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LynnetteLynnette Finnie looks at a display showing photos of the recovery process where the remains of her niece, Trukita Scott, were discovered, during a press conference at the Fort Lauderdale Police Department on Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (Carline Jean\/South Florida Sun Sentinel)<\/p>\n

Standing next to photos of investigators digging in the yard where her niece\u2019s remains were found, Scott\u2019s maternal aunt Lynnette Finnie read a written statement from Scott\u2019s mother, Kengeral Allen.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom 11 years, 10 months and 44 days, my daughter was someone\u2019s lawn fertilizer,\u201d Finnie read. \u201cAnd you tell me no one seen anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discovery isn\u2019t closure, Finnie read. Scott\u2019s son has grown up \u201cquestioning his mother\u2019s love, asking if his mom loves him. He asks, \u2018Why don\u2019t she come and see me?\u2019 My grandkids will never feel their mother\u2019s hugs. My daughter deserved better. She had dreams of becoming a police officer. She was just so damn trusting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finnie read another statement on behalf of the family, thanking Novak and the other investigators for their commitment to finding answers for them. She paused for a long moment after saying, \u201cat the same time, our family is heartbroken and deeply disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday and always, we choose to remember Trukita Scott for the love she gave, the lives she touched and the light she brought into this world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Watts was sentenced in November 2024 in the murder of his wife Harris. He shot her multiple times at the Michael-Ann Russell Jewish Community Center in Miami, where Harris and her mother were attending her daughter\u2019s swimming class.<\/p>\n

After his arrest in the shooting, Fort Lauderdale Police named him as a person of interest<\/a> in Scott\u2019s disappearance.<\/p>\n

Man accused of shooting wife to death a day after stabbing her is a person of interest in Broward missing woman case, police say<\/a><\/p>\n

Years before Watts\u2019s relationships with Scott and Harris, he had a relationship with 26-year-old Vickie Simmons, who was found murdered in a motel on Biscayne Boulevard in February 2009. She was living with Watts at the time of her death.<\/p>\n

Det. Angel Rodrigues, a spokesperson for Miami-Dade Police, said in an email to the Sun Sentinel in 2022 after Watts\u2019 arrest in Harris\u2019s murder that the department\u2019s Cold Case Squad was \u201crevisiting\u201d Simmons\u2019 case. Novak at the news conference Tuesday said it is still being investigated by that department\u2019s Cold Case Unit.<\/p>\n

Whether Watts will be charged in Scott\u2019s killing remains to be seen.\u00a0Novak said any decisions about prosecutions will be made by the state Attorney General\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Information from the Sun Sentinel archives was used in this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The remains of a mother who disappeared 12 years ago were recently uncovered at a South Florida home,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[506,112,28,30,29,249,114,373,115,109],"class_list":["post-277226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-broward-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-latest-headlines","tag-miami-dade-county","tag-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}