Body suspected to be missing woman’s
Indiana resident vanished from Sylvania Twp.
11/13/2012PALMYRA, Mich. -- Dental records should be able to tell authorities if the body found in a field Friday is that of a woman who went missing from Sylvania Township in September.
Lenawee County Sheriff Jack Welsh said his office is waiting on Kathy Sackrider's dental records, which Sylvania Township police were to be in the process of obtaining, he said.
Sylvania Township police Chief Robert Boehme did not return a call for comment.
The sheriff said Sylvania Township were at the scene after the body was found by a farmer working in his fields on Scott Highway near Station Road on Friday afternoon. The body was too decomposed to determine an age range or race, officials had said.
An autopsy performed on the body "didn't show us a whole lot," Sheriff Welsh said. When asked if the autopsy could determine if the death was the result of a homicide, natural causes, or accidental, the sheriff said not enough information was gleaned from the autopsy to say for sure.
He declined to comment on whether there was anything found with or near the body, or if the body was clothed at the time it was found.
Ms. Sackrider was last seen by family on Sept. 18, pushing a grandchild on a swing at her daughter's Sylvania Township home. A week later, her bright blue pickup was found at Whetstone Park with no sign of Ms. Sackrider, other than her purse and a framed photograph of her late husband, Jack Sackrider, found in the truck.
Linda Baranek, Ms. Sackrider's sister-in-law, said police have been in contact with Ms. Sackrider's daughter.
"You know, part of us is hoping it is her," Mrs. Baranek said, adding that the family would then start to have an idea of what happened to the 59-year-old Indiana woman. "But there's nothing we can say. We don't know anything."