Balloons and flowers now line the bridge near where a body was found Thursday in Clarkesville. And while no one knows for certain the persons’ identity, it’s not the ‘who’ but the ‘how’ that has created a sense of communal loss.
A sad discovery
Two women searching for a missing homeless man discovered the remains on the north upstream side of Sutton Bridge on September 10. The bridge crosses over the Soque River on GA-197 North near Pitts Park.
The deputy coroner says it appears the person had been dead for three to four weeks. That matches the timeframe during which Shane Justice, the man they were searching for, went missing.
Due to the state of decomposition, authorities can’t confirm that it’s Justice. The State Medical Examiner’s Office will have to rely on dental records and DNA analysis to positively identify the body and that, says officials, could take months.
In the meantime, Justice’s family and friends are in limbo. Some privately confide they believe that it’s him, but until there’s a positive identification there will be no funeral. As they grapple with continued uncertainty, the community is grappling to understand how something like this could have happened.
How could a person die so close to such a heavily traveled road and go undetected? How could searchers and a cadaver dog miss the body? How could a homeless man so many had come to recognize, even befriend, simply vanish in such a small town?
Investigators are looking into the possibility the body may have been moved there, but Habersham County Deputy Coroner Ken Franklin says at this point, there’s nothing to indicate that it was.
For now, there are only questions seeking answers, and a family seeking closure, however that may come.
