Skeletal remains of Maury-Ange Faith Martinez found in Chattanooga

US News

By Patrick Reilly

A Georgia woman who disappeared without a trace last August has been confirmed dead after her skeletal remains were found 100 miles from her home in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The Cobb County Sheriff's Office said this week that the remains of Maury-Ange Faith Martinez, 20, of Alpharetta, had been positively identified by the Hamilton County Medical Examiner's Office.

Martinez was reported missing in Gwinnett County, northeast of Atlanta, on Aug. 28, according to police.

His remains were found on the side of a road in a rural area near the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant on Jan. 5, the Chattanooga Times Free reported.

However, it took weeks to confirm that the remains belonged to Martinez.

She would have turned 21 on Monday.

“She was a charismatic, magnetic, bubbly, fun, loving person,” Martinez's heartbroken mother, Anita Darling, recalled to Local 3 News.

Darling said she was less than ten minutes away from picking up her daughter near the Atlanta courthouse the day she disappeared.

“I was about to pick her up, and she called me and told me she took a taxi,” she told the outlet. Her daughter then stopped responding to her text messages.

Martinez did not know the man she got in the car with, Darling said.

“I had a conversation with her about it, it still seemed strange to me. I got off the phone with her and felt uncomfortable,” she said.

She said she received a phone call last month from authorities telling her they believed the remains belonged to her daughter.

“You’re totally torn,” Darling said. “Then there’s the heartbreak of realizing you’ve lost your child. My children are like everything to me. It was horrible. It was huge.

It's unclear how Martinez died and his death remains under investigation, cops said.

There were no signs of trauma or major injuries before the death, authorities said.

Police said his last known location was in an unincorporated area of ​​Cobb County and asked anyone with information to come forward.

Darling said the family plans to donate Martinez's remains for medical research.