ATLANTA, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Remains found near Blairsville, Ga., were identified as those of Kristi Cornwell, missing since August 2009, law enforcement officials said Monday.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said it confirmed Cornwell's identity through dental records, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Cornwell, 38, was last seen walking along Jones Creek Road near her home in Blairsville, about 9 miles from where her remains were found Saturday.
The identity of her killer remains a mystery, even though investigators have eliminated James Scott Carringer as a possible suspect. Carringer shot and killed himself after a 3-hour standoff with Atlanta police in April 2010.
Cornwell was talking on the phone with her boyfriend the night she disappeared. She told Douglas Davis of Carrolton a car was following her and he said he heard her scuffling with her abductor and pleading, "Don't take me."
Carringer was also suspected in attacks on a woman at Kennesaw State University in Georgia's Cobb County and on a girl in Alabama.
"It's been very tough," John Bankhead of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation told WXIA-TV in Atlanta. "Obviously it's been tough on the family not knowing."
