Missing Georgia Woman Found Dead 100 Miles from Home in Tennessee
A Georgia woman who disappeared without a trace last August has been confirmed dead after her skeletal remains were discovered 100 miles away in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The Cobb County Sheriff’s Office announced that the remains of 20-year-old Maury-Ange Faith Martinez, from Alpharetta, were positively identified by the Hamilton County Medical Examiner's Office.
Martinez was reported missing from Gwinnett County, northeast of Atlanta, on August 28. Her remains were found on January 5 by the side of a road in a rural area near the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported.
Identification of the remains took several weeks, delaying the confirmation. Martinez would have turned 21 on the Monday following the discovery.
“She was a charismatic, magnetic, sparkling, fun, loving person,” recalled her heartbroken mother, Anita Darling, to Local 3 News.
Darling shared that she was minutes away from picking up her daughter near the courthouse in Atlanta the day she went missing. Martinez had called her mother to say she had caught a ride, but then stopped responding to texts.
Martinez did not know the man she had gotten into the car with, Darling said. “I had a conversation with her about it, and it still seemed strange. I got off the phone with her and felt uneasy about it.”
Authorities informed Darling last month that they believed the remains were her daughter's. “You are totally torn apart,” Darling said. “Then, there is the heartbreak of realizing you lost your child. My kids are like my everything. It was horrible. It was huge.”
The cause of Martinez's death remains under investigation. Police reported no signs of trauma or major injury before death and have asked anyone with information to come forward. Martinez's last known location was in an unincorporated area of Cobb County.
Darling said the family plans to donate Martinez’s remains for medical research.
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