Two people have been arrested after the body of a missing Tennessee woman was found over the weekend.
Twenty-four-year-old Chelsie Autum Walker was last seen on 29 October at the Walmart in Tellico Plains where she worked, 13 miles from her home in Madisonville. A tragic breakthrough in the investigation came on Sunday after her remains were found in a wooded area in Monroe County, the Madisonville Police Department said in a statement.
Two people have been arrested in connection to Walker’s death, police said. Madisonville Police and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office are conducting an investigation.
Walker’s friend Miranda Waller told The Independent on Monday that Walker, a mother-of-two, last communicated with her aunt on the day she went missing. According to Ms Waller, Walker texted around 9pm that her car had broken down and she was trying to get help.
“This [wasn’t] normal. This isn’t something Chelsie would do. Chelsie never would just leave her kids — she never would and she never has.” Ms Waller said. “Nobody knew what we were walking into. It was real[ly] scary.”
Ms Waller said that five days after Chelsie went missing, she began organising search parties within the area where her friend was last seen in Tellico.
According to Ms Waller, Walker had been working at Walmart for two years. On the day she went missing, Walker reportedly texted her aunt that her children were going to stay with their father and that somebody would pick her up because her car was not starting.
“She worked almost six days a week and she worked to come home, repeat. That’s exactly what she did,” Ms Waller said. “This was not something I could just say, ‘Oh, she’ll come home eventually.’ My heart knew better.”
She added: ”We just wanted her to come home to her babies because they didn’t know any better. She was the primary caretaker and no babies deserve to go without their mom, especially when she was a good mom.”
“This is a real community of everyone-knows-everybody type of thing. I’ve had strangers I’ve had to ask to fix my phone, I’ve never had to wonder if there was gonna something more or less to that. It’s very scary.”
Ms Waller claimed that Cheslie possibly knew one of the men in police custody. The man allegedly claimed to have dropped Walker off at a gas station initially.
The Independent has reached out to Madisonville Police.
Ms Waller described her friend as a devoted mother to her two toddlers, who are being cared for by family members.
“She was really feisty. You know, she talked to anyone that would talk to her, especially. She was real[ly] helpful at work and a really smiley person. This is beyond us,” she told The Independent.
