Autauga County Seeks Public Help Identifying Woman Found in Mulberry Creek

Norfolk Southern Railroad workers found the body of an unidentified woman in Mulberry Creek near County Road 83 at approximately 3:15 p.m. on March 17, and more than two weeks later, she still has no name.

The Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences completed an autopsy two days after the discovery, identifying her as a Black woman between 45 and 55 years old, standing about 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighing approximately 130 pounds. She had short black hair, no tattoos, and one distinctive physical mark: a scar from a Cesarean section delivery. She was found wearing a multi-colored top, a black jacket, and dark-colored pants.

Investigators with the Autauga County Sheriff's Office could not lift usable fingerprints from the body, eliminating one of the fastest identification pathways. DNA was collected and submitted for testing, but a match requires either a database hit or a reference sample from someone who knew her, and results can take weeks or longer.

Sheriff Mark Harrell, who has led the office since 2023 with 28 years of law-enforcement experience, has classified the case as a death investigation. Investigators have not publicly stated whether foul play is suspected.

The body was recovered on the Autauga-Dallas county line where Mulberry Creek runs beneath the roadway. That creek originates 45.4 miles upstream in Chilton County and passes through parts of Dallas and Autauga counties before joining the Alabama River. Investigators have specifically named all three counties as the geographic corridor from which the woman may have traveled, widening the canvass for missing-persons reports or associated cases.

Anyone who may recognize the description, particularly the C-section scar which is the most specific identifying detail investigators have made public, is asked to contact Investigator Watts at the Autauga County Sheriff's Office at (334) 361-2500. The office is located at 162 West 4th Street in Prattville.

In cases where fingerprints cannot be obtained, investigators may also utilize the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, known as NamUs, a federally funded database that cross-references unidentified decedents with missing-persons records nationwide and offers forensic genealogy and DNA testing services if standard comparison yields no match.