July 1 – A dead person found under a bridge in Fairmont is the third set of human remains found in Marion County in the past month and the fourth found in counties surrounding Monongalia.
On June 3, a woman, later identified as 30-year-old Courtney Nicole Martin, was found in a creek bed near Oakwood Road. Her cause of death has not yet been released, but investigators estimate she had been dead for about a week. A preliminary autopsy revealed no obvious signs of physical trauma.
The investigation into Martin’s death is ongoing, as police await the coroner’s results.
On June 7, four days after Martin’s body was discovered, a fisherman found remains in the Monongahela River near Hoult Town. The body was decomposed, but the remains appeared to be those of a man. Police said the location of the body does not necessarily indicate that this is where they died and that it could have come from a nearby area.
According to Fairmont police, there were no obvious signs of penetrating injuries and the man is not related to any of the reported missing persons. Detectives are continuing their investigation into an identity.
A press release Monday afternoon from Fairmont Police Chief Steve Shine said a third body was found Saturday in a wooded area in Marion County, near the railroad tracks and Buffalo Creek.
Shine said this person was also in a very decomposed state and has likely been dead for weeks or months. They do believe the person died near the area where they were found. Fairmont police are also investigating the identity of these remains.
Shine said: “No link has been established between these deaths,” adding that drugs or drug paraphernalia were also found in two of the three deaths.
The press release also debunked rumors of a fourth body recently found in Marion County. In a grim anomaly, Fairmont has found three, not four, deceased people outside in the past month.
Regarding the Fairmont cases, Shine reiterated that “these individuals are not unsolved missing persons cases of our agency.”
The Fairmont Police Department is asking anyone with additional information or concerns that either of the two unknown individuals has been reported missing to another agency to contact their detective division at 304-366-2217.
On the other side of Monongalia County, a body was discovered over the weekend across the Pennsylvania border in Point Marion. That person has been identified as Larry Greene, 50, of Bobtown, Pa.
