Body found in abandoned car in Cooke County was missing Fort Worth woman, police say
A body found in Cooke County on Saturday has been identified as missing Fort Worth woman Carolyn Riggins, Fort Worth police said Thursday.
Riggins, 69, was last seen on July 11 in Tarrant County.
“We send our deepest condolences to her family,” Fort Worth police said in a Tweet Thursday afternoon. “We appreciate everyone who helped in the search for her.”
Authorities did not release any information on a cause of death. Her body had been taken to the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy.
A hunter found Riggins’ body about 11:45 a.m. Saturday in northeast Cooke County in her car, the sheriff said. Her body was in the back seat. Cooke County is 65 miles north of Fort Worth.
The car was not wrecked and appeared to have been driven to the wooded area in northeast Cooke County near the Red River.
“It appears the vehicle was driven there and stopped,” said Cooke County Precinct 2 Justice of the Peace Carroll Johnson in a telephone interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Thursday. “It wasn’t on any kind of road. It was just out in a pasture.”
Johnson said the vehicle was in a very isolated area.
“There was no cell phone service there,” Johnson said noting that authorities had to leave the area on Saturday to make calls.
The area where the vehicle and body were found was more than 25 miles from Interstate 35.
The vehicle was in the woods in the Delaware Bend area of Cooke County, Sheriff Terry Gilbert said Tuesday in a news release.
A hunter found the car and alerted deputies with the Cooke County Sheriff’s Office.
Riggins’ last known location was 6901 N. Beach St. in Fort Worth. She was driving a 2002 Lincoln Town Car with Texas license plate CGB-1453.
One of the last places the Fort Worth grandmother, who suffered from stroke dementia, was seen was at a Watauga bingo hall just after winning money, a family member told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram this summer.
This story was originally published October 29, 2020 at 3:24 PM.
