Remains Identified As Rita Evacuee, Sheril Susan Moore
The remains of the missing Texas woman Sheril Susan Moore were identified and confirmed. She was found about 1/2 mile away from her vehicle in a field in Oklahoma. She was on her way to Colorado to visit with her son as she was in the process of evacuating from Hurricane Rita.
The cause of death is unknown at the time and investigators are considering it to be a homicide even though her husbands seems to think it was an accident caused by fatigue.
“We are continuing to investigate this as a homicide until we get evidence that shows us otherwise,” said Grady County Undersheriff Irene Perske.
Remains discovered in a rural area near Amber have been identified as that of a missing Hurricane Rita evacuee from Houston, who was headed to her son’s Colorado home, Grady County officials said Thursday.
Search crews discovered the remains of Sheril Susan Moore, 59, on Tuesday in a pasture less than one mile from where the woman’s sport-utility vehicle was found last week, Grady County Undersheriff Irene Perske said. She had been missing for a month.
On Friday, authorities resumed their search for the woman after a farmer found her car abandoned in a pasture near Amber. The 2001 Ford Explorer was about 300 yards from the road sitting along a creek bed.
The Equusearch team was the first to find the remains, McMullen said.
Grady County Sheriff’s deputies and Equusearch, a search and rescue team out of Houston, Texas, began searching the farmland Tuesday morning following fruitless searches both Thursday night and Friday to find a woman missing from Texas.
Sheriff Kieran McMullen said the Equus team was in the southwest corner and Layton had a group in the southeast corner when the two groups decided to start toward each other.
The Equusearch team was the first to find the remains, McMullen said.
By noon, volunteers from across the county had assembled to aid in the search for remains. McMullen said besides Equusearch and the deputies, volunteers from the Grady County Volunteer Fire Departments, Rush Springs Fire Department, Oklahoma State Troopers, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, Amber Police and Grady County reserves deputies showed up to assist in the search.
Moore’s husband, Barry Moore of Houston, said he believes his wife was suffering from fatigue and stress from being on the road for about 48 hours and that she became lost and disoriented.