Police identify dismembered body found in vacant lot Monday

By Christian Boone and Marcus K. Garner

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Police have identified the woman whose headless, hand-less body was found Monday afternoon in west Atlanta.

Linda Symantha Myrick, 44, is said to be the woman found in a vacant lot on Elm Street and Joseph E. Boone Boulevard, police said.

Atlanta Police Maj. Keith Meadows said investigators with the Fulton County Medical Examiner's office were able to identify Myrick from medical records.

The medical examiner's Web site described the body as weighing about 110 pounds with surgical scarring on her left ankle and evidence on her left leg of  "surgical placement of plates and screws."

Myrick, whom police said lived in DeKalb County, wasn't listed in Atlanta police missing person's database.

Investigators aren't sure what happened in the moments leading up to her death, but Meadows said detectives are placing her final hours sometime between late Saturday night and early Sunday morning.

"We have not been able to retrace her steps," he said.

Police said there were no other initial signs of injury or sexual assault, but the full autopsy report from the medical examiner's office is still pending.

Meadows said Myrick is believed to be a mother of three adult-aged children, and was known to frequent a notorious section of Moreland Avenue and Memorial Drive in DeKalb County. Police are canvassing the area and talking with Myrick's family.

"We are seeking to question some of Ms. Myrick's known associates," Meadows said. "At this point we have not developed or eliminated one particular person as a suspect."

Authorities said Myrick has had some minor criminal activity in her past, including a Fulton County probation violation arrest in February 2009 for a previous criminal trespassing charge.

Investigators spent Tuesday canvassing the west Atlanta neighborhood, bordered by Vine City and the Bluffs, where Myrick's body was discovered.

Residents say crime has always been a fact of life along that section of Joseph E. Boone Boulevard, and even Monday's gruesome discovery was not unprecedented.

"We've had these kind of murders over here before," said Gwendolyn Grady, 48. She said that over the last two decades two other dismembered female bodies were found within this same area. Other residents repeated Grady's claim.

"There isn't much going on here at night," said 60-year-old Johnny Searcy. "And with all the abandoned houses, I guess this has become a simple place to dump a body."

The woman's body was found wrapped in a comforter by a passer-by amid a thicket of weeds and discarded soda bottles. Neighbors say the vacant lot has been used as a dumping ground before.

"I see people go up there to relieve themselves every now and then," said Ron White, 51, who works across the street at Wingo's Body Shop. He recalled the discovery of a body years earlier on this same corner.

"It was right at Elm and Jones," Grady said. "I was working on a demolition crew. Found this woman cut up in a freezer."

Longtime resident Jerry Clayton, 41, said crime has gotten worse, though not everyone agrees.

"Go down to James P. Brawley," he said, pointing to an intersection a couple of blocks west of Elm and Jones. "Every other weekend you'll see a new teddy bear on the corner."

The bears are left behind by relatives and friends mourning the loss of a loved one, he said.

But even here, where most everyone has been touched by crime in some way or another, Myrick's murder has people talking.

"There's nothing you could do to deserve what happened to her," Searcy said.

Police are asking anyone with information about Myrick's murder to call Atlanta Crime Stoppers at 404-577-8477.