Sheriff speaks on woman’s identified remains; murder investigation underway
Sheriff Eric Balentine says he and his investigators are very thankful her remains were identified.
By Maddie McCaffrey
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Alabama (WAAY) — A Shoals family finally has closure. The Colbert County Sheriff’s Office says the remains discovered back in November of 2020 on Jarmon Lane have been positively identified as Courtney Staggs.
Courtney Staggs was last seen four years ago, leaving the area of Irvine Street in Florence less than 20 miles away from where her remains were discovered.
The sheriff spoke in detail Monday about how important it is that they’ve finally identified Staggs’ remains.
Sheriff Eric Balentine says he and his investigators are very thankful her remains were identified. The sheriff says her remains were sent off to the FBI in Quantico.
And the FBI called him Monday, giving them the news—something Balentine says his investigators and, more importantly, the family of Staggs have been desperately waiting on for years.
Balentine said, “You know, that’s really a long time for me. And you can imagine what it’s like for the family. That sitting there and trying to bring some closure and try to have a proper burial, and they always think that there’s a possibility that their loved one’s out there somewhere, and we didn’t give up that hope. But you know, unfortunately, their loved one is deceased. Today is a good day. It’s bittersweet…but this does allow us to move forward, bring these people to justice, and find out what happened to Miss Staggs.”
Balentine describes the pain the Staggs family has gone through as excruciating. He says their investigators are now working to piece together what happened to Courtney. So justice can be served.
Balentine said, “We do have some persons of interest that we are going to speak to very soon. But now that we have this positive ID, we can create a better timeline, and this is something we’re going to start working on immediately. We’re just glad we got a positive ID and got the family some closure they deserved.”
Balentine says they will be working to determine exactly the cause of the death of Courtney Staggs. He says he believes she was killed, and this will be treated as a murder investigation.
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