A missing Georgia woman has been found dead in a ravine after sending her daughter a chilling final message telling her, "they are not going to let me go, love you," as investigators believe she was kidnapped before being killed. The body of Debbie Collier, 59, was found in a ravine on September 11 in Georgia after she went missing the day before.
Cops launched a homicide probe after searching the nearby area with a K-9 unit. They first found a red tote bag and a partially-burned-blue tarp and intensified their search. Finally, a day later they found Collier's body in a small, steep-sided ravine near a wooded area in Tallulah Falls, Georgia.
Mystery Behind Death
Mystery shrouds Collier's death, with investigators now believing that she was kidnapped and then murdered. The frightening final letter the Collier sent to her daughter before she was found dead implied that she was being held against her will. The message was made public by investigators at the Habersham County Sheriff's Office.
Collier's daughter Amanda Bearden told police that her mother had only her driver's license and a debit card when she left her house with. She said that left in a rented SUV as her car was in the shop, according to 11Alive.
Sometime later, Collier sent Bearden a total of $2,385 via Venmo along with the heartbreaking message, "They are not going to let me go, love you."
After receiving the cryptic message, Bearden, 36, attempted to call her mother, but she didn't pick up the phone. At that point, the daughter called the Athens Clarke County Police and reported her mother missing.
According to police, Collier's disturbing message to her daughter may imply that there was a violent kidnapping involved before she was discovered dead. According to 11 Alive, the situation is being treated as a homicide rather than a suicide.
Case Still Unsolved
Police then launched a search for Collier and after tracking a few of her belongings they found her body in a ravine near the woods in Tallulah Falls.
"Further search resulted in locating the body of a female subject down an embankment close to where the bag and tarp were located," Habersham County Sheriff's Office Col. Murray Kogod said.
The rented vehicle's SiriusXM satellite radio was tracked to US 441 near Victory Home Lane, about 60 miles from Collier's home, and a Habersham County Sheriff's Office K-9 team located the woman's body nearby. Although police have launched an investigation and are treating the case as a homicide, they are yet to get any breakthrough or make any arrests.
Collier's distraught family was notified as soon as police found her body, and an autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death.
The tragic mom got married in 2013, according to the outlet, and had previously worked for Carriage House Realty in Athens. Her husband, Steve, claimed that on September 8, the evening before she disappeared, he last saw his wife at 9 p.m.
Police is yet to share further details about her tragic death.
