Missing 74-Year-Old Alabama Woman Found Dead; Homicide Investigation Opened

Escambia County Sheriff’s Office identified the body as belonging to Eva McBride, 74, who went missing Nov. 24, reported AL.com. (Evon McBride / Facebook)

A body found in a Florida river is that of an Alabama woman who went missing last month, according to law enforcement.

Escambia County Sheriff’s Office identified the body as belonging to Eva McBride, 74, who went missing Nov. 24, reported AL.com.

McBride, from Pollard, Escambia County, was found next to the Escambia River in Jay, Florida, NBC15 reported.

“On 12/9/18 at approximately 11:00 am, the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office Dispatch Center received a call in reference to an individual who was found deceased along the bank of Escambia River in Jay,” said a press release from officials, according to AL.com. “The location was approximately 1 mile south of Terrell Landing Boat Ramp.”

Officials said, “Detectives are actively working this death investigation. The deceased was an adult female.”

A daughter of the woman, Cindy Brittingham, said she became alarmed when her mother didn’t show up for church for cleaning services on Nov. 24, WKRG reported.

“I call this disappeared,” Brittingham said last month. “Absolutely just gone. No trace is here, every single thing, purse, everything, just disappeared.”

Officials with the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office previously said that “no foul play has occurred” in her disappearance. However, they are “assuming the worst” in the case and opened a homicide case, the report said.

Police and search crews went through her home and searched a nearby wooded area. McBride reportedly also suffers from a medical condition that may impair her judgment.

Another daughter of the woman, Evon McBride, said she thinks her mother was abducted.

“I don’t feel like she’s in the woods over here,” the daughter told WKRG. “The only thing that makes sense is that someone was involved.”

“I don’t know if someone came by, if they took her, it was someone she knew, if it was someone she didn’t know. It seems odd it would be someone she did not know,” the woman said.

Anyone with tips in the case is being urged to call the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office at 251-809-0741.

Missing People

There were about 464,324 missing children reported in the FBI’s National Crime Information Center last year, says the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. When a child is reported missing to law enforcement, they must be entered into the database as per federal law. “Unfortunately, since many children are never reported missing, there is no reliable way to determine the total number of children who are actually missing in the U.S.,” said the group.

“Of the nearly 25,000 runaways reported to NCMEC in 2017, one in seven were likely victims of child sex trafficking. Of those, 88 percent were in the care of social services when they went missing,” the group says on its website. Another five percent are family abductions, less than 1 percent are non-family abductions, and 1 percent are lost, injured, or otherwise missing children.

Meanwhile, the organization has received more than 10 million reports via its online tipline and the majority are about of images that show alleged sexual abuse of children, online “sextortion” attempts, child sex trafficking, and sexual molestation.