The demise of 59-year-old Georgia lady Debbie Collier, whose physique was discovered bare and partially burned earlier this month, was “private and focused,” police say.
The investigation into Collier’s mysterious demise is ongoing, however at the moment investigators don’t imagine it was a suicide or a random act of violence, the Habersham Sheriff’s Workplace stated in a information launch.
“In an try to deal with the options of this being a suicide or the work of a serial killer, we wish to reiterate that there’s nothing that has come from this investigation up to now that might assist the speculation that this was self-inflicted or that it was a random act of violence,” the discharge acknowledged. “Right now, the investigation is main us to the proposition that Mrs. Collier’s demise was private and focused.”
Police additionally beforehand stated there was no proof suggesting a Collier had been kidnapped — regardless of a chilling textual content message to her daughter indicating that she was presumably being held in opposition to her will.
In a press convention Friday, the sheriff’s workplace revealed it acquired new safety video from a enterprise subsequent to the Household Greenback in Clayton, Georgia the place Collier was final seen on Sept. 10.
The footage reveals Collier stroll out of the greenback retailer at 3:09p.m., sit in her automobile for 10 minutes, then drive out of the car parking zone heading south on Georgia State Highway 15.
“This data permits investigators to slim the time of demise to a window starting at 3:19 p.m. on Saturday, September 10 to the invention of the physique on Sunday, September 11 at 12:44 p.m.” the information launch learn.
Collier’s post-mortem report and evaluation stories of things submitted by the sheriff’s workplace to against the law lab are nonetheless pending, Habersham County Chief Deputy Murray Kogod stated on the information convention Friday. Police are simply beginning to obtain data from an preliminary collection of search warrants and subpoenas that have been filed in connection to Collier’s case.
“Please perceive that this case may be very complicated in nature and has a whole lot of questions and unknowns that are not present in a typical demise investigation,” Kogod stated. “It’s going to take considerably extra time than the 19 days which have handed for the reason that discovery to unravel this crime.”
Collier’s partly burned bare physique was discovered Sept. 11 within the woods off the facet of a street in north Georgia, roughly an hour from her house in Athens, an incident report reveals.
Collier’s daughter alerted authorities to a chilling textual content message — “they received’t let me go, there’s a key to the home beneath a flower pot,” — that her mom despatched by the fee app Venmo earlier than she disappeared. Collier additionally despatched her daughter $2,385, the sheriff’s workplace stated.
Collier was captured in safety video on Sept. 10 at 2:55p.m. at a Household Greenback in Clayton, within the North Georgia mountains, shopping for a tarp, a torch lighter, a rain poncho and a reusable tote bag, the Habersham County Sheriff’s Workplace stated in a information launch.
Collier seemed to be “calm and never afraid of something,” authorities stated.
The 59-year-old’s physique was present in a wooded space off State Highway 15 at 12:44 p.m. on Sept. 11, roughly 13 miles south of the Household Greenback she was final seen in.
The Habersham County Sheriff’s Workplace is encouraging anybody with data on Collier and her demise to come back ahead.
Tim Stelloh contributed.
