Augusta Billboard Remembers Those Missing Since 1990
Date: October 10, 2017
Summary:
If you’re driving along Milledgeville Road and Deans Bridge Road, you probably noticed the billboard remembering the missing persons who have been missing since 1990.
Body:
If you’re driving along Milledgeville Road and Deans Bridge Road, you probably noticed the billboard remembering the missing persons who have been missing since 1990. “We don’t know if they’re deceased. We don’t know anything, no kind of information. It’s just like they just vanished in the thin air,” says Shanta Sturgis.
Shanta Sturgis says the development of this billboard was like another light shined on the case of her missing sisters. “I was excited when they first told us that they was going to put them on a billboard because for years we hadn’t gotten any kind of media attention or stuff like that. So, once they said they was putting the billboard up, I was like okay, maybe we’re going to get somewhere now,” says Sturgis.
She says the mystery of their whereabouts would not have lived on without the help of The Fall Line podcast based in Atlanta and Pastor Angela Harden who helped raise money for the billboard. “And then they started doing their own investigation. They started finding out all kind of stuff that we didn’t even know about. We didn’t know there was serial killer in the same area we lived in. We didn’t know that there somebody out here lurking in alleys and stuff like that,” says Sturgis.
Her and her family have kept their ears and eyes open for years, just looking for some kind of clue. In 1996 a female body was found in Aiken that looked like Sturgis’s sister. Since their case wasn’t reopened until 2013, the family couldn’t get DNA testing until then. “They found one over in Aiken right now. We were talking with the Aiken coroner office because they found one person’ s body over there. And the person looks like my sister.”
Even after almost 30 years, she feels her sisters would be proud of her diligence. Every day she hopes her family will finally get the closure they need. “I think they would thank me and say I love you for not giving up on us, because you never gave up. Out of all this time, we have already prepared ourselves for the worst because it’s been a long time and nobody has seen them, nobody has heard nothing from them. That’s what we did. We prepare ourselves for the worst, but we hope for the best,” says Sturgis.
Shanta says she and her family are still awaiting the results of the DNA test with the Aiken Coroner in regards to the body that was found years ago.