HERNANDO – (AP) DeSoto County authorities have launched a homicide investigation into the death of a 50-year-old woman whose skeletal remains were found near Hernando last week.
Sheriff Bill Rasco confirmed Friday that the remains have been identified as Sherry L. Smith, who was reported missing by her family in September.
The Commercial Appeal reported that Smith’s remains were found Tuesday morning, Jan. 31, near Miss. 301, by two men on an all-terrain vehicle out surveying the property.
DeSoto County District Attorney John Champion said that a male acquaintance of Smith’s, who is currently in the county jail on an unrelated charge, is a person of interest in the case. He said that because of the ongoing investigation, authorities are not releasing the man’s identity or his relationship with Smith.
“At this time, we know her death is a homicide and have several people of interest in the case,” Rasco told The Commercial Appeal.
He then referred all other questions about the investigation to DeSoto County Dist. Atty. John Champion.
If there is any charge filed against the man being questioned, it would come after the case is turned over to the grand jury in early April, Champion said.
Champion said Smith, who also went by the name Sherri Smith Percival, was a native of DeSoto County and lived in the Horn Lake area.
He said she has an adult daughter who lives in California, aunts in DeSoto County and a sister in Tate County.
Authorities said her boyfriend was the last one to see her in early June at the Handshake Lounge, a local bar she frequented on Miss. 301 in Eudora, Miss. The bar, now called Eudora Pizza, is about two miles south of Pratt Road where Smith’s remains were found.
Her boyfriend, did not report her missing. She was not reported missing until Sept. 10 by her family.
Since that time the CUE Center for Missing Persons, a North Carolina-based nonprofit group, put Smith’s picture and information up on its website.
The Sheriff’s Department also put her information on its Facebook page.
“We circulated her picture and investigated the leads, but turned up nothing until her remains were found…,” Rasco told The Commercial Appeal.
DeSoto County Coroner Jeff Pounders said Smith’s remains were identified by a comparison of a DNA sample taken from Smith and a sample taken from one of her relatives.
Pounders said he is waiting on a full autopsy report from the state crime lab in Jackson to determine a cause of death.
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