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Hailey Silas appears inset against an image of a barge along the Mississippi River. (Selfie via Facebook; Screengrab via WMC)
Hailey Silas was all of 22 years old and, in her final days, scared for her life. Last Saturday, her body was found on a barge in the Mississippi River near Shelby Forest in Shelby County, Tennessee.
A few days before she died, Silas was arrested by police in West Memphis, Arkansas – for a misdemeanor charge of communicating a false alarm. She had called 911 repeatedly from a truck stop near the Southland Casino and asked for a ride from law enforcement due to being afraid of something amid what she called a “panic attack.”
As of now, authorities have not said what the woman came to fear.
The 911 call was made on Oct. 15. Three days later, after requesting a ride to the “psych ward,” she pleaded guilty to that relatively minor charge. Three days after that, on Oct. 21, Silas was found dead during a routine inspection. The barge was cleared to leave Memphis, Tennessee, around 2:30 that morning, according to The Oklahoman.
“In my 22 years in working for the sheriff’s office, I don’t think there’s been an investigation of a body on a barge, so that’s extremely unusual for us,” Shelby County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Anthony Buckner said at a press conference reported by Memphis-based NBC affiliate WMC this week. “But we do know the crew members made that discovery around 7:15. They turned the vessel around, and they docked near the Shelby Forest area. Then our detectives boarded the vessel, and started their investigation.”
The barge had last been inspected around 11 the night before, authorities say. That leaves a roughly three-and-a-half hour timespan during which Silas, somehow, made her way aboard.
It would be three days before Silas was identified. Authorities say they do not believe foul play was involved in her death.
Silas’ family is shocked and perplexed.
“I don’t want to think about my baby being hurt like that and nobody being there to save her or being there to help her,” the woman’s mother, LaRena Darrow, told Memphis-based CBS affiliate WREG. “I had spoken with her Thursday night, and she had sent me a couple of pictures of her on a bridge, and she looked so happy. And she was about to go sing karaoke, and that was the last time I talked to her.”
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“She was an amazing mother,” Darrow added. “My grandson is missing out on such a wonderful person. She was such an angel.”
A GoFundMe was started by her sister.
Daisy Silas described her sibling as “the best mom in the entire world while she was there, so patient, so understanding, so beautiful inside and out.” She added that “whoever IS responsible for this will have their day of judgment.”
The grieving mother said she had no idea what brought her daughter, an Oklahoman, to the border of Arkansas and Tennessee.
Silas’ ex-boyfriend, Cesar Perez, who she dated for over seven years and has a 4-year-old son with, is wondering the same.
“Why her? Why did it have to be her?” Perez told WMC. “I just want to know the truth. What happened? What exactly happened? I’m just trying to process this whole thing. Kind of want to figure out what’s going to be the best way to let her son know his mother is no longer here.”
According to law enforcement, Silas was discovered without any identification. That has only deepened the mystery and pain for loved ones.
According to her mother, someone else has her cellphone. When she called her daughter’s number last, she said, a strange man picked up and gave a strange response when questioned.
“And I said, ‘This is my daughter’s profile, what are you doing on it? And he said, ‘Well, I’m sorry Hailey doesn’t have a phone anymore.””
