[Florida Files] Beverly McGowan: Killed By Her Roommate

The Discovery

On July 19, 1990, a couple was exploring near a canal in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, when they made a horrifying discovery.

Inside a large green trash bag floating in the water was the dismembered body of a woman. Her head and hands had been removed.

The man who found the body immediately shielded his young companion from seeing the gruesome image. They left the scene and called 911 from a nearby store.

The Investigation Begins

St. Lucie County Sheriff's detectives arrived at the scene and began piecing together what had happened.

The man who reported the body said he had been to that same spot two nights earlier, and the body wasn't there. Investigators believed the woman had been killed and dismembered somewhere else, then callously discarded in the canal, most likely from a vehicle.

The woman was dressed in jeans and a pink flowered shirt. Her identity was a mystery with no head or hands.

All that was left on her body was a small yellow rose tattoo on her ankle.

An autopsy concluded that the woman had been killed when her throat was slit. The killer then cut her head off at the jaw and removed her hands to conceal her identity. The dismemberments were done crudely with a machete.

Identifying the Victim

Police turned to the public for help. They revealed that the woman was 25 to 35 years old, about 5'5" and 150 pounds, with brown hair and a small rose tattoo.

A few days later, a man named Steve contacted police. He believed the body was his sister, Beverly McGowan. When Steve heard about the yellow rose ankle tattoo, he just knew it was Beverly.

Steve had been trying to find his sister after he and two of Beverly's closest friends received strange handwritten letters from her stating that she was unhappy with her life and was going to take a trip.

Who Was Beverly?

Beverly McGowan was a 34-year-old Philadelphia native living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She worked at a local branch of Glendale Federal Bank and was considered a workaholic by those who knew her.

Beverly was quiet and kept to herself. She had moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1980 and had taken various bookkeeping jobs over the years.

Beverly was a trusted, hardworking woman who never imagined the danger she was in.

The Killer: Elaine Parent

The investigation led to Elaine Parent, a 48-year-old con artist and identity thief.

Elaine had a pattern of befriending women, stealing their identities, and manipulating them for financial gain. But with Beverly, Elaine's crimes escalated to murder.

After killing Beverly, Elaine fled to London on July 23, 1990, using a stolen identity. She boarded a flight from Miami to London under the alias "Sylvia," a real person whose identity Elaine had stolen.

Elaine was so brazen that she had stolen multiple identities, including one from a woman named Charlotte, whom she met in an Orlando bar. Elaine used numerology as a ruse to get Charlotte's personal information, writing down her social security number on a cocktail napkin.

The Pursuit

Elaine Parent became one of the most wanted criminals in Florida. Her pattern of identity theft, manipulation, and murder made her extremely dangerous.

The investigation into Elaine's crimes revealed a web of stolen identities, international travel, and a complete disregard for human life.

Beverly McGowan was a quiet, hardworking woman whose trust was betrayed in the most horrific way. She deserved better. Her story is a reminder of the dangers of identity theft and the evil that some people are capable of.