Human remains found in car linked to a woman missing for 16 years, Tennessee cops say
A car pulled from a lake is connected to a woman who has been missing for 16 years, Tennessee officials said.
At about 3:30 p.m. Nov. 11, the Oak Ridge Police Department said human remains were found inside the car. A medical examiner reportedly has been trying to identify the person, as it is “unclear whether the remains discovered in the vehicle are” the missing woman’s.
Police had said the car was “confirmed to be linked to” the disappearance of Miriam Ruth Hemphill.
She was in her 80s when she vanished from Oak Ridge, roughly 25 miles west of Knoxville. Hemphill’s husband was the last person to see her before she went missing in July 2005, with possible plans to go to Blount or Sevier counties, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System said on its website.
Then on Wednesday, Nov. 10, police said divers found a car with ties to the missing woman in Melton Hill Lake, a reservoir in Oak Ridge. Officials said “there is no confirmation of a body being in the vehicle.”
Police are investigating and said crews sifted through the car’s mud and silt on Nov. 11.
Hemphill is described as wearing glasses and having gray hair and brown eyes. She was driving a “brown 1999 Buick Le Sabre” at the time of her disappearance, and the car that was pulled out of the water was registered to her, WVLT reported.
Anyone with information is urged to call police at 865-425-4399 or submit a tip at oakridgetn.gov/department/ORPD/Home.
This story was originally published November 11, 2021 at 8:27 AM with the headline "Human remains found in car linked to a woman missing for 16 years, Tennessee cops say."
