Authorities found a missing Alabama woman’s body burning at the end of a wooded, dead-end road after she reportedly disappeared while making a Facebook Marketplace purchase.
The woman has been identified as Jermiera Ivory Fowler, 31, according to Birmingham Police Department she had not been seen since Wednesday. Birmingham Fire Rescue personnel put out the flames, and officers noticed “visible signs of trauma” on the victim, according to the release.
After she was pronounced dead, authorities noticed she had been shot before being set on fire. A neighbor who lives close to where Fowler’s body was found did an interview with WVTM and said Thursday night he saw flames rising up from his backyard fence. “When I looked out my bedroom window, I seen a big flame,” Herbert Brown told the outlet. “I mean a big flame.”
“So I was curious like is somebody burning trash, so I go out there with a big flashlight and I look over the fence and there was this body on fire. The firefighters came, they put the fire out and the police stayed out there until 2 or 3 in the morning just scanning the place,” he said.
“I seen this picture and it went through my mind, that’s that lady out here that’s burning,” Brown said. “This shouldn’t have happened to her like that.”
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Brown also went on to say how he feels like the person who did this to Fowler knew what they were doing.
“That’s a dead end and you’d have to know this area to want to cut off onto that street and go down through there because it’s a church down that dead end, no traffic be down there,” Brown said.
Fowler’s vehicle was found in a separate location.
It’s unclear whether she had made the Facebook Marketplace purchase before her death, and police could not say whether her death stemmed from the online purchase meet-up.
No arrest has been made in connection to Fowler’s murder. Police are investigating the case as a homicide.