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Body Found in Port St. Joe that of Missing Woman
Authorities have not determined whether it is missing woman's
In a scene fraught with emotion a missing woman's body has apparently been discovered not too many yards from the place she called home.
Acting on a tip, investigators from the Gulf County Sheriff's Office and Port St. Joe Police Department discovered the body of an unidentified female Tuesday afternoon in a wooded area off Avenue A in Port St. Joe.
State Attorney Glenn Hess said the body was that of Mary L. Thomas, 56, who had been missing for more three weeks and had been last seen in Port St. Joe.
Gulf County officials were awaiting results from an autopsy to be performed Wednesday in Panama City.
Thomas' family called the Sheriff's Office early last week to report they had not heard from Thomas in about two weeks. It is extremely unusual for Thomas not to contact her family, relatives told authorities.
While law enforcement officials worked Tuesday and kept silent on details, Thomas' family watched as the crime scene tape and barricades went up, marking the area where the body was discovered, with tears, moans of horror and the cries of a family robbed.
Investigators said it would be several hours before the body is removed from the wooded area, as crime scene technicians from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, in town on an unrelated matter, worked the heavily thicketed site.
