A community search for a missing Lawrenceville-area woman turned tragic Saturday after a body was found by one of her co-workers.
Relatives feel certain the body found in woods near the Oak Village subdivision where Nique Leili, 44, lived is that of the mother of three who has been missing since July 9.
Neither Gwinnett police nor the county's medical examiner has positively identified the body. Authorities have asked family for dental records to help identify the corpse.
Leili's sister, Amy Elk of Loganville, who was part of a large group of people who converged at the Oak Village subdivision to look for the woman, said the family was "reasonably sure it's her."
Leili's mother, Harriet Garrett, told Channel 2 Action News: "I knew. I think in the back of my mind I knew."
The medical examiner said the body was in "really, really bad shape" and can't be identified just from facial features. A flyer described her as being 5 feet 3 inches tall, 110 pounds with reddish blonde hair and green eyes.
Gwinnett police were talking with Leili's husband, Matt Leili, on Saturday and so far were not considering him as a suspect in his wife's death. Authorities also searched the couple's home nearby.
"I wouldn't classify him as a person of interest," said Cpl. J. Roberts. "Anytime a friend or a family member goes missing, we want to talk to everybody that's been involved with that persons life and get as much information as possible on what's going on."
Family members say Matt Leili had recently filed for divorce from his wife and did not immediately inform them that she had been missing.
A co-worker involved in the search found the body under a pile of leaves.
"I just saw a huge big pile and it looked abnormal, you know," Allison Rockwell told Channel 2 Action News reporter Sophia Choi. " It just looked like it was covering up something. So I just started kicking away at it and just saw her body and her hair - her bloated body and her hair."
Elk, Leili's sister, told the AJC that her sister worked in finance and payroll as a controller. She said Nique and Matt Leili had been married for at least 15 years and had lived in the Gwinnett subdivision for at least a dozen years.
Elk was critical of her brother in law. "He waited two days to report her missing," the grieving sister told Channel 2 Action News. "And he filed for divorce and she'd been gone for four days. She didn't take her car or her cellphone or anything, and he told me that they'd had a huge fight and she wasn't well," the sister said. "I saw her two weeks ago and she was fine. She was fine."
The woman's husband left the area minutes after the body was found, people at the scene said.
The couple has three daughters ages 19, 12 and 9 years old. The 19-year-old from a previous marriage, Alex Page, was at the scene helping to search for her mother Saturday when the body was found.
“She was wonderful, very kind and funny,” Elk said of her sister, who was also one of three daughters. “We joked all the time. She was a wonderful mom. She worked very, very hard to do what’s best for her children.”
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