GBI IDs Woman Found Dead Near Cumming, Suspect Arrested in NJ Murder

Diaja Benson was 30 years old, from Dawsonville, and had been missing for nearly three weeks when a multi-agency search located her body in a wooded area near Lanier 400 Parkway and Bald Ridge Road in Cumming on the morning of March 13. Six weeks after that discovery, the man named in the original missing person alert is now in custody in New Jersey, charged with her murder.

The U.S. Marshals Service arrested Loron Spaulding, 35, of Gainesville on April 2 on a charge of malice murder in connection with Benson's death. Spaulding is being held in New Jersey awaiting extradition to Georgia, where authorities plan to book him into the Forsyth County Jail on malice murder and potentially additional charges.

Benson was first reported missing in Dawson County on February 20. When deputies filed the missing person alert, the Dawson County Sheriff's Office noted that Benson might be in the company of Spaulding, placing him in investigators' sights from the start. Her body was found approximately three weeks later, at about 11:00 a.m. on March 13, after a search involving five agencies: the GBI, the Cumming Police Department, the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office, the Dawson County Sheriff's Office, and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The GBI is leading the active investigation at the request of the Cumming Police Department. Authorities have not released a motive or disclosed the nature of the relationship between Benson and Spaulding.

Dawson County Sheriff Jeff Johnson addressed the arrest publicly: "Another tragic loss in our community reminds us just how fragile life is. I'm proud of the hard work our deputies put in as they worked to find Diaja and bring her killer to justice."

When Benson's body was first found in March, the Cumming Police Department posted on social media that it was working an "ongoing investigation" with partner agencies and that there was no danger to the public. With Spaulding now in custody in another state, the investigation remains active and ongoing.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the GBI's Regional Investigative Office in Cleveland, Georgia, at (706) 348-4866. Anonymous tips can be submitted by calling 1-800-597-TIPS (8477), online at gbi.georgia.gov, or through the See Something, Send Something mobile app.