A woman’s remains were discovered in the woods in eastern Missouri over the weekend, more than five months after she went missing, authorities said.
Emily Strite, 33, was last seen in Imperial, a suburb of St. Louis near De Soto, in early April, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. Detectives said she left the area on foot, apparently of her own free will, in a missing person flier for Strite released later that month. Strite was officially reported missing April 20.
Law enforcement had asked the public for assistance as their investigation into Strite’s disappearance got underway. The sheriff’s office in their April bulletin had described her as 5 feet 5 inches tall and said she wore jeans and a dark blue hoodie before she disappeared. Images of Strite appeared in that bulletin alongside the description.
The owner of a property in De Soto found Strite’s body on Saturday, Jefferson County Sheriff Dave Marshak announced Tuesday.
Deputies responded to a call Saturday from the De Soto property owner, who reported that human skeletal remains had been discovered in a wooded area, Marshak said. Investigators with the regional medical examiner’s office determined the remains belonged to Strite, using medical and dental records to confirm the identity.
Strite’s cause of death was still unknown as of Tuesday, according to the sheriff. Marshak said investigators were “working to learn how her body ended up where it was found.” Authorities have asked anyone with information about the case to contact the detective bureau at the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
Charlyn McClain, Strite’s mother, told NBC’s Dateline she last spoke to her daughter on April 12. McClain said Strite was staying with a friend in De Soto at the time, and she assumed afterward that the 33-year-old had traveled over the Missouri border to Cahokia, Illinois, to visit her children at their father’s home. But the father, Steve Fults, called McClain about a week later asking if she had heard from Strite, the mother recalled to Dateline.
“He has never called me and questioned anything about Emily or to tell me anything about Emily,” McClain said, according to NBC News. “That’s why I panicked when he called me because he had never done that before.”
A missing person report for Strite was filed shortly after that.
CBS News contacted the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office for more information about their investigation into Strite’s disappearance but did not receive an immediate reply.