DEL NORTE COUNTY, Calif. – Police in northern California are treating a suspicious death as a murder investigation.
The Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office said on February 1, the grandmother of 31-year-old Emiley Hughes called deputies to report her granddaughter as missing. The last time she heard from Hughes was on December 23, 2018.
Deputies started to investigate the case, creating a missing person flyer and notifying other agencies about the disappearance. As this was happening, Hughes’ mother was contacted and said she also had not heard from daughter since late December.
On February 2, deputies said Hughes’ mother told DNSO her daughter was alive and well. She stated Hughes was with her boyfriend in Eureka and had gone missing voluntarily. However, since deputies still hadn’t heard from Hughes directly, she remained officially missing.
Investigators said they eventually received a report that Hughes may be dead in her last known residence. The report itself wasn’t enough to allow police to legally search the home. However, they tried to do so lawfully several times.
Police tried to track down Hughes’ estranged husband and were able to contact him once, but he never showed up to an arranged meeting at the home. He also disconnected his phone.
On February 14, a family member found Hughes’ vehicle. That same day, the family member went to Hughes’ home to get keys for the vehicle and entered the residence police wanted to investigate. When she entered the home, she noticed a suspicious odor.
The odor was enough for deputies to finally obtain a warrant to search the home. When they did, they found a person who appeared to have been dead for several weeks.
DNSO said, “At this time we are unable to identify the decedent and will not release information on this individual’s identity until we are 100% certain who he or she is.”
The scene is being exhaustively investigated as police try to determine the circumstances surrounding the person’s death. “At this time we cannot confirm this investigation to be a murder investigation as we do not yet know what lead to the death of the individual we located, although we are treating it as such,” deputies stated.
Hughes’ estranged husband, Edward Culver Hughes IV, is being sought as a person of interest in the case. Police believe he knew about the body in his house.
Anyone with information about the whereabouts of Edward Hughes is asked to call the sheriff’s office at 707-464-4191.
© 2024 KOBI-TV NBC5. All rights reserved unless otherwise stated.