HUEYTOWN, Ala. – Investigators searching for a missing Alabama woman who texted she could be in trouble after leaving a bar with two strange men last month said Friday that they had unearthed a female body in a shallow grave, according to a report.
The grave was discovered in the backyard of an apparently vacant home in Hueytown by investigators looking for Paighton Houston, 29, who was last seen in Birmingham on Dec. 20.
Officials said the body was intact and wrapped in some sort of fabric, the Birmingham News reported. Detectives trying to solve the mysterious disappearance first descended on the home Thursday.
Jefferson County sheriff’s Chief Deputy David Agee told the paper the body’s discovery was being handled as a death investigation.
“Right now we have a lot more questions than answers but we hope to have those answers real soon,” Agee said. “We’re going to work hard and we’re going to find out what happened.”
On Thursday Houston’s mother, Charlaine, linked to a story about the Hueytown search on her Facebook page.
“Bring Paighton home,” she wrote on Friday before the discovery of the body was reported, according to Fox News.
Houston, of Trussville, left the Tin Roof bar with the men and later texted a friend saying “she didn’t know these people and she was in trouble,” according to reports.
The investigators at the home in Hueytown included Birmingham police homicide detectives and police from Trussville and Hueytown, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office deputies and Jefferson County’s Metro Area Crime Center, the news agency reported.
Neighbors said the home belonged to an elderly man who no longer lives there, according to the paper. It’s unclear who, if anyone, lives there now.
A tipster brought investigators to the address, the paper reported.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey posted a $5,000 reward for information in Houston’s disappearance. Another $5,000 in reward money was being offered by Crime Stoppers.
