Cops: Burned Body, Cryptic Text, No Evidence of Abduction

Police are investigating the mysterious murder of Deborrah Collier in Georgia
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 22, 2022 10:15 AM CDT

Police are trying to solve a murder mystery in Georgia, where the naked, partially burned body of a woman was found in the woods on the side of a road. What seems to be the last known communication from Deborrah Collier, 59, was in a message sent to her daughter on Venmo, along with $2,385. "They are not going to let me go love you," Collier apparently wrote Sept. 10, adding a note about where a key to her house could be found, per NBC News. But police say there's no evidence so far to suggest Collier was kidnapped. Her rented van—her own vehicle had been involved in a wreck, per WGCL—was discovered empty and unlocked in a pull-off for a logging road off State Route 15 in Habersham County on Sept. 11, not far from her partially burned body.

Officers initially spotted a red tote bag, then the remains of a fire and a partially burned tarp, per NBC. Collier's body was nearby on its back, with the right hand clutching onto a small tree. Her abdomen looked to have been burned, according to a police report. An officer from another department reported seeing Collier's van in the same location, about an hour's drive from Collier's home in Athens, on Sept. 10—the day Collier's 36-year-old daughter and husband reported her missing. According to People, Collier was last seen leaving her home on Sept. 9, while Fox News reports she was last seen Sept. 10. A neighbor tells the New York Post that "screaming and fighting" can often be heard from Collier's home, especially when a younger woman comes to visit at night and on the weekends, and that there was a similar "commotion" the night before Collier disappeared. (More murder stories.)

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