Friends of a Cobb hair stylist were befuddled Monday by her killing in Decatur over the weekend.
Karen Pearce, 44, worked full time and had gone back to school to study nursing, said her longtime friend Lindalee Bridges.
“She was a good woman with a big heart who worked her tail off,” Bridges told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution by telephone. “She was trying to make a future for herself where she could help others. She was making straight As.”
Pearce’s body was spotted behind One Decatur Town Center by somebody leaving a nearby parking deck, Decatur police said. Witnesses reported hearing a gunshot in that area before the Smyrna woman was discovered, although her cause of death has not been officially determined.
Pearce worked at True Salon off of Dallas Highway, according to a post on the salon’s official Facebook page.
“It is with profound sadness that we can confirm Karen Pearce, a talented and popular stylist at true Salon/Spa, was killed Saturday evening,” someone wrote in the Facebook post. “While we are all in shock and grasping to understand how something so tragic could happen to a woman with such a beautiful heart, we must believe justice will prevail.”
True Salon was closed Monday “as we mourn the death of one of our team members,” according to another Facebook post.
Pearce had just left a local restaurant and was walking in an area adjacent to where her vehicle was parked when she was killed, police said in an emailed statement.
Police are still searching for a motive. Pearce, a petite woman, didn’t have a history of troubled relationships but rather had been focused on her job and school, said Bridges, who had recently moved to Tennessee and had planned a reunion with Pearce next week in Georgia.
“I’m devastated, absolutely devastated,” Bridges said. “She didn’t have any enemies that I know of. … All I know is (her death) was needless and senseless.”
Investigators ask anyone with information to contact the Decatur Police Department at 404-373-6551 or Crime Stoppers at 404-577-TIPS. Tips can be submitted online at www.crimestoppersatlanta.org.
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