Missing woman's body found

Monroe County Sheriff Tom Boatwright said on Tuesday that the investigation into the death of a Colorado woman found dead last Thursday in Monroe County remains ongoing.

No cause of death has been determined in the case, as of Tuesday morning, he said.

The remains of Cheryl Louise Pence, age 56, of Rye, Colorado, were found last Thursday morning in Monroe County, just south of the Wilcox County line. Pence had been missing since Dec. 31, when she and her son, Michael Brandon McBee, age 37, also of Rye, Colorado, were seen entering the woods off St. Francis Road, west of McWilliams in Wilcox County.

Members of the Monroe County Rescue Squad helped locate McBee on Jan. 3. McBee was found in an extremely dehydrated condition and was transported to the hospital in Camden for treatment. After his release from the hospital, Wilcox County law enforcement officials questioned McBee about Pence's disappearance and later released him from custody.

Last Thursday around 10:30 a.m., a hunter attempting to enter a shooting house near Beatrice found the door locked from the inside, Boatwright said. A search team looking for Pence was already in the area, so the hunter notified them of the locked shooting house. When they investigated, they found Pence's remains.

Investigators do not believe that foul play was involved, but Pence's remains were sent to the Alabama Department of Forensic Science to determine her cause of death. Investigators believe Pence entered the shooting house to shelter against the cold weather.

According to Pence's niece, Shawna Hathaway of McKinney, Texas, Pence "was naked" when found inside the shooting house. Hathaway said that some of Pence's clothes were found, but not her pants. Hathaway said the missing woman was wearing only a thin tank top, jeans and sandals when she went missing. Pence was found about one mile from where her vehicle was abandoned on St. Francis Road and in the opposite direction of where McBee was found, Hathaway said.

Hathaway and family members have no idea what Pence and McBee were doing in Wilcox County, nearly 1,400 miles from their home in Colorado. Hathaway said that Pence worked as a successful flood insurance adjuster and was in Florida working on Dec. 27. Pence's cellphone was either turned off or its battery died on that day, and relatives lost contact with her, Hathaway said.

McBee traveled to Florida to find his mother, and relatives believe that they met in Pensacola, Fla., Hathaway said. Authorities later located McBee's vehicle at a hotel in Orange Beach, Hathaway said. Relatives don't know why McBee and Pence got into Pence's small Volkswagen Beetle car and drove to Wilcox County on Friday, Hathaway said.

Pence's Volkswagen was later found stuck near 122 St. Francis Road, which is about four miles due west of McWilliams and about five miles northeast of the Rikard's Mill Historical Park near Beatrice.

"We think they were driving in the woods and got to a place where they couldn't go any farther because the car they were in just wasn't capable of driving on those kinds of roads," Hathaway said.

Hathaway said that she and her family are devastated by Pence's death.

"It doesn't seem real yet," Hathaway said. "She was such a joyful person and always was making sure that the people around her were happy. This truly doesn't feel real. Cheryl has three kids and five grandbabies. Her only daughter just had her first baby in December. Cheryl hadn't met the baby yet. There is a lot of pain from this and we are completely heartbroken."