A cognitively impaired North Carolina woman, who was last seen on a doorbell camera entering a stranger’s car, was found dead in a wooded area just a few miles from where she vanished. Heather Williams, 25, was captured on a Ring doorbell camera leaving her family’s Fayetteville home on January 4.
She was next seen getting into a “light-colored sedan with a sunroof” at around 10 p.m. the same day, according to local authorities. The Fayetteville Police Department launched a missing persons investigation and issued an endangered person alert on January 7, citing her “cognitive impairment.” However, cops found her body in a wooded area around 5 pm on Friday.
Grim Discovery
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Williams’ body was found just 5 miles from the location where she was last spotted alive, the department said in a statement on Saturday. “It is with a heavy and broken heart that our family confirms the horrific news,” her sister, Mary Williams, wrote on Facebook Saturday.
“I pray whoever is responsible for this is held accountable and there is justice for Heather.”
Mary told WRAL that the family did not know the person driving the vehicle and suggested that Williams—who had cognitive impairment, limited speech, and restricted use of her right leg and arm due to a car accident in 2015—might have met the person online.
“She was just so trusting and naive to what the dangers were out there,” she said.
On the same day that Williams’ body was found and authorities also located the suspect’s vehicle.
“I just ask that people out there, if they hear anything or if they see something, you know, somebody knows something, somebody’s talked to somebody, somebody has, you know, they slip up along the way,” Mary told WRAL.
“So somebody’s got to know something.”
Investigation Still Ongoing
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Investigators told CBS 17 that they are pursuing several leads but have not yet identified a suspect in the case.
“What happened to Heather is awful, and I wouldn’t want it to happen to anybody else, and so with that person still out there, still able to harm other people, it’s horrific to think about,” Mary told CBS 17.
Mary said her family has found “comfort in the love that Heather had for God and through all her trials and tribulations, she has never lost her faith and I know we won’t lose ours either.”
“I thank God for the years we had with her,” she said.
