10th flood casualty found

By Marcus K. Garner

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Authorities believe they've found the body of the missing Carroll County woman apparently washed from the road in her vehicle during flooding last week.

Douglas County Sheriff Phil Miller said a female body was found Monday afternoon downstream from where deputies discovered the mangled Jeep Liberty belonging to Debra Hooper.

"We believe it's her," Miller said. "We don't know of anybody else that is missing. It is consistent with the time she went missing."

But Miller said it was still too soon to say definitively that the body is in fact Hooper.

"We have to do an autopsy and compare with dental records," he said, adding that finding a positive identification could take several days.

Even if the body should not be Hooper, it would be the seventh death from last week's flooding in Douglas County, and the 10th statewide.

Although a formal search for Hooper was suspended Monday, a Douglas sheriff's lieutenant, a county jail trustee and members of an inmate work crew continued to look for her, Miller said.

They found the body Monday around 3 p.m., about three miles from where her Jeep was discovered last Wednesday, authorities said.

Hooper left the Villa Rica home of a friend around 9:30 p.m. on the Sunday night that heavy rains began flooding roads in Carroll County and throughout Georgia.

It was her birthday, and the last time she was seen.

“It was rare that I didn’t even talk to her on her birthday,” said Hooper's daughter, Jessica Bartke, 19, of Winston. “I thought maybe she was busy and she didn’t have time to charge her phone.”

The search that began for her Thursday was temporarily suspended on Monday, more than a week after Hooper's Jeep Liberty was apparently swept into flood waters in neighboring Douglas County, authorities said.

Hooper's Jeep was discovered from a helicopter Wednesday at the confluence of Mobley Creek and the Dog River, Miller said.

"The water was so high, we couldn't get the tag number," Miller said.

Bartke reported Hooper missing to Carroll County sheriff's deputies on Thursday.

Bartke said her mother had lived in Carroll County for about 10 years and was familiar with area roads.

Hooper worked two jobs, one as a dispatcher for a transportation company and the other providing in-home care to the elderly, ailing or disabled.

Carroll and Douglas county sheriffs deputies began searching Friday and were able to link the SUV to her. They found her purse Saturday morning before having to suspend search effort for more rain.

"The Jeep is extremely damaged," Miller said. "There are a lot of large rocks in the Dog River, and it appeared that it tumbled quite a bit."

Searchers used cell phone tower triangulation to pinpoint the area where Hooper might be, Miller said.

Staff writers Mike Morris contributed to this article.