The search for a missing young woman from Alabama has concluded with heartbreaking news, as her body was discovered on Saturday. A man has been charged in connection with abusing her corpse.
Karen Deann Hollis, aged 23, disappeared from the Georgetown Apartments in Northport on May 8. Her sister, Brandy, grew worried when she didn’t hear from Karen and reached out to the authorities for help, as reported by WIAT.
“I have not felt good,” Brandy expressed last week as the search for her sister continued. “I haven’t eaten, I haven’t been able to sleep.”
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency issued a missing persons alert, noting that Hollis might have been affected by a condition that could cloud her judgment.
As the investigation unfolded, Northport police suspected foul play and enlisted the Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit. Their efforts pointed to 44-year-old Randall Lendell Dejourney as a person of interest, according to WBRC.
Then on Saturday, Hollis’s friends and family members decided to scour an area in Greene County that authorities determined to be of interest based on information received from an electronic device – where they found her remains.
Dejourney was then promptly taken into custody and charged with abuse of a corpse.
Karen Deann Hollis, 23, was found dead on Saturday after going missing on May 8
Randall Lendell Dejourney, 44, has been charged with abuse of a corpse
‘The investigation has been a priority for both agencies,’ Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Captain Jack Kennedy said of the unit and Northport police.
‘Multiple search warrants were executed and a great deal of physical, witness and electronic information was obtained.’
Hollis’s boyfriend, Zackary Slaughter, has previously said he was half an hour away at home when she went missing.
He said they were exchanging text messages in the hours leading up to her disappearance.
‘The last thing she texted me was saying she was going to the store to get a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup,’ Slaughter recounted.
‘She texted me at 11pm saying she didn’t feel good. I tried calling her at 4 that morning when I woke up and then at 5am, detectives were knocking on my door.’
He said the police were questioning him about Hollis’s disappearance at the time, as he was previously ordered by a bail bondsman not to contact Hollis over a prior domestic violence charge.
But, Slaughter said, the two reconciled and go back together.
Karen’s sister, Brandy, said she began to worry when she did not contact her heading into the weekend
He then said police should instead be looking into the man he said gave Hollis a ride to the store, whom he said was a neighbor at the apartment complex.
It is unclear whether Dejourney is that neighbor.
But he has been booked into Tuscaloosa County Jail with bond set at $15,000, as Hollis’s remains are sent to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for an autopsy to determine the case and manner of death.
The investigation is now ongoing, with authorities saying Dejourney may face more charges pending the results of the autopsy.Â
In the meantime, Hollis’s family has been left reeling from the devastating news. Â
‘My heart is hurting,’ her sister, Brandy Hollis, posted on Facebook as she shared an online fundraiser for her sister’s funeral.
She wrote that the two sisters had plans to go fishing, and asked her sister’s spirit to ‘Please tell our brother that I miss ‘n’ love him.’
Brandy and Karen spoke regularly, and it was Brandy who first worried something may be wrong when she didn’t hear from her sister going into the weekend, WIAT reports.
Slaughter also previously told WIAT he ‘never thought I’d be the guy that just lost somebody.’Â
‘To know that I should have been there, like I could have been there, I was one phone call away, and she never got the opportunity, and I wasn’t there,’ he said.