The Atlanta Journal reports that the body of a woman found Monday in southeast Atlanta might be Stacey Nicole English, 36, who was reported missing in December 2011.
“The decedent is an adult black female, consistent in age with reported missing person Stacey English,” said chief medical examiner Randy Hanzlick, though it remains unclear whether the body is that of the missing Buckhead woman.
According to the AJC, two men searching for scrap metal stumbled upon the body on Monday in a wooded area less than a mile away from where English’s white Volvo was found abandoned with the engine running.
The body was “in an advanced state of decomposition,” Atlanta police spokesman Carlos Campos told the AJC.
APD notified English’s family of the discovery. “If this is not her, I have to still be sad because it’s someone else’s child,” said Bernice English Hurks, English’s aunt.
“I can’t base my emotions on what I think,” English Hurks said. The hardest thing now, she said, “is not knowing.”
An autopsy is underway to identify the body and to determine the cause of death.
