Authorities in Hood County, Texas believe human remains recovered from a lake last week may be a woman who has been missing for nearly 35 years.
Helen Holladay was 45 when disappeared in 1979, the Star-Telegram reports. Her husband, Herman Holladay, told officials that his wife drove away from their weekend residence at Whippoorwill Bay and was heading towards the city of Granbury. Neighbors said just before the disappearance, the couple had gotten into a fight.
"Early on in the investigation, the husband was looked at as a suspect but he was never charged with a crime,” Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds told the newspaper. “We never got any evidence to tie him to it.”
The woman was declared dead in 1986, and her husband has died since.
On Thursday, someone reported seeing a truck in Lake Granbury. The truck was visible because drought conditions had caused low water levels in the lake, according to Fox 4. When authorities removed the truck, they found a skeleton inside, as well as a purse with Helen Holladay's ID.
There were no signs of trauma to the skeleton, but Deeds says because the vehicle was so far from the road, it doesn't seem like it ended up there by chance.
“It wasn’t an accident,” he told WFAA. “Where the vehicle was found, I find it to be an intentional act, whether it was from Mrs. Holladay or some other means.”
Officials are now running DNA tests to confirm whether the remains are indeed Holladay's.
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