Police waiting for lab results
The police chief says they will discuss evidence with the district attorney once results are in.
By Heath Hooper
Rome News-Tribune (GA)
January 25, 2007
Vera Elizabeth “Nib” Hyde was first thought to have died in a fall, but an autopsy found she had been shot.
Floyd County police say they are awaiting some lab findings before moving ahead in the murder investigation of an elderly Lindale woman found shot in her home last December.
“It’s going to be awhile,” Floyd County Police Chief Bill Shiflett said Wednesday.
As of last Thursday, no one from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s crime lab had been assigned to the case, Shiflett said. Until that happens, the case cannot go forward.
Such a delay isn’t abnormal because of the backlog of cases at the crime lab, he added.
Floyd County police began investigating the death of Vera Elizabeth “Nib” Hyde, 80, on Dec. 4 after a Georgia Bureau of Investigation autopsy determined she had been shot.
Police first suspected Hyde died in a fall but sent her body to the GBI to determine an official cause of death. Hyde was found at her Reeceburg Road home by her granddaughter after she missed a church meeting Dec. 2.
Search warrants were carried out in December in both Floyd and Polk counties in connection with the investigation. It was during those searches that police recovered items now awaiting analysis at the GBI’s crime lab.
Floyd County police also sent divers into a Polk County pond in search of a murder weapon, though no gun was recovered.
Once they receive the crime lab’s results, Shiflett said, the next stop for police is the district attorney’s office. “We’ll go over all the facts of the case with the DA to see if there’s enough evidence for a prosecution,” Shiflett said.
Shiflett said Wednesday investigators have focused on a particular individual. “We have one individual that we’re looking at with a lot of interest,” he said.
He declined to say if the person was specifically a suspect but did say Hyde knew the person.
Police said earlier they did not believe the shooting resulted from a botched break-in, but they have not yet indicated if they believe Hyde knew her killer.