Woman's body identified in Carter County

VAN BUREN -- Carter County authorities have identified the partially decomposed body found three weeks ago by a hunter as that of a rural Van Buren woman.

Carter County Coroner Erik McSpadden said the woman has been identified as Susan Hamric, 64.

Hamric lived close to the area where her body was found, McSpadden said.

"It was short distance through the woods ... less than a mile," Carter County Sheriff Rick Stephens said.

The body had been found in what Stephens earlier described as a "relatively isolated" and heavily wooded area.

It lies east of McClain Forest Products along U.S. 60. The hunter reportedly found the body as he was walking through the area just after 4 p.m. Nov. 23.

"It took us a while to identify her; she has not always lived in Carter County," McSpadden said. "We had to run down her dental records.

" ... We were able to do [an I.D.] with some certainty, without doing DNA, based on medical and dental records."

While authorities now have an identity on the body, they still don't know how she died.

The cause of death is "still up in the air," McSpadden said.

An autopsy performed by Dr. Russell Deidiker at Mineral Area Regional Medical Center in Farmington, Missouri, found "no outward signs of trauma or foul play," Stephens said earlier.

Based on decomposition, it was earlier estimated the body had been in the woods for "anywhere from two to eight weeks," but officers could not be sure on the time, Stephens said.

Samples were taken from toxicology analysis, and those results are pending. Toxicology results typically take a month to six weeks to be returned.

"That will help us, hopefully, to have an answer whether we're dealing with something natural, environment[al] or criminal," Stephens said.

Since the manner of death has not been determined, "like everything else, until we know otherwise, we'll investigate the worst-case scenario," Stephens said. "We still have our investigator and the [Missouri State Highway Patrol Division of Drug and Criminal Control] investigators following up on multiple leads coming in from the public."