By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
Escambia County Sheriff Heath Jackson announced this week that forensic pathologists with the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences have finally identified the person whose desecrated body was found more than four months ago in a forested area near Nokomis.
Jackson said ADFS doctors have confirmed that the body is that of 23-year-old Toyshia Ceara Snowden of Atmore, who was reported missing in August. Her family has been notified.
Jackson said the local woman’s remains were discovered September 3 in a rural woodland about five miles west of Atmore, after ECSO investigators received an anonymous tip that “somebody thought they saw a body” in the Nokomis area.
Atmore Police Chief Chuck Brooks said one of Snowden’s friends told city police in late August that Snowden, who worked at a local McDonald’s, had not been seen for several days.
Brooks said an APD investigator was sent to Snowden’s place of employment, and one of her co-workers reported having seen her the previous day. Nothing else was heard of, or from, her until her body was found.
Jackson said crime lab technicians “did not specify a cause of death” due to the condition of the woman’s body, which also made identification more difficult. They did, however, confirm that her death was a homicide, the sheriff said.
De’Antae Deshay Knight, 20, of Atmore was taken into custody shortly after the body was discovered. Knight remained this week in the Escambia County Detention Center, where he is being held under a $1 million bond on one count of simple murder.