A six-week-old murder investigation in Habersham County may not have been murder after all. Sources close to the investigation into the death of Debbie Collier now say she may have died as the result of an accident or suicide.
“We may live in a world where we never know for sure,” the source says.
Cryptic message sent from Family Dollar
The biggest revelation in recent days was the discovery that a cryptic message and Venmo payment sent to Collier’s daughter, Amanda Bearden, apparently came from Debbie Collier’s phone.
At 3:17 p.m. on September 10, Collier sent her daughter, Amanda Bearden, $2,385 through the Venmo payment app. Along with the money, she sent a message that read: “they are not going to let me go love you there is a key to the house in the blue flower pot by the door.”
Sources tell Now Habersham the message was sent during the time that Collier is known to have been sitting in her rented van in the parking lot of a Family Dollar store in Clayton, Georgia. She also reportedly sent a text to her son saying, “I love you,” but that text, later found in subpoenaed phone records, didn’t go through.
Shortly after the messages were sent on Saturday, September 10, Collier’s phone went silent. She drove away from the Family Dollar store at 3:19 p.m. and was found dead in the woods near Tallulah Falls about 12 miles south of Clayton 22 hours later.
Gas can experiment
That chilling message and Venmo payment captured investigators’ and the media’s attention because it indicated a possible kidnapping. However, within weeks of launching their investigation, Habersham County sheriff’s investigators dismissed the possibility that Collier was abducted. They zeroed in on people close to the deceased real estate office manager and, as they did, the scrutiny surrounding her husband, Steve Collier, Bearden, and Bearden’s boyfriend, Andrew Giegerich intensified. Investigators questioned them and executed search warrants at their homes in Athens. And although investigators never publicly identified suspects or persons of interest in the case, Habersham County Chief Deputy Murray Kogod insisted that Debbie Collier’s death was “personal and targeted.”
Kogod may now be looking for a way to backtrack on that statement.
While the state medical examiner has not released a final autopsy report, sources tell Now Habersham it appears Debbie Collier may have died from suffocation as a result of a fire that she herself may have started. Her injuries were consistent with those of someone caught in a flash fire possibly caused by gasoline vapors igniting.
An arson analysis confirmed the presence of gasoline on her clothes.
While investigators knew from the outset that an accelerant was used, the absence of a gas container at the scene caused them to suspect someone else was present and had removed the container. After conducting an experiment, investigators confirmed a plastic container could have melted in the fire. It was at that point, weeks into the case, that detectives returned to the scene where Collier’s body was found and recovered what appeared to be the burned remnants of a gas can.
Awaiting official cause and manner of death
Collier appears to have initially survived the fire which charred her lap and abdomen and apparently burned off the Georgia Bulldog jersey she was wearing. She was found grasping a small tree in her hand, as if she had grabbed onto it to keep from falling.
The items she bought at the Family Dollar store were found near her partially nude, burned body. The QR code on a burned blue tarp is what led investigators to the Family Dollar store. That discovery ultimately led to the surveillance video with the last known images of Debbie Collier alive.
Whether her death was accidental or intentional remains to be seen. Officials have not released the results of her autopsy.
Now Habersham has reached out to Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell and Kogod for confirmation on the status of the case and will update this article as new information is released.
