Authorities in Pennsylvania believe they have located the body of Elizabeth Pollard, a woman who fell into a sinkhole while searching for her cat earlier this week.
Sean Hribal, a deputy coroner in Westmoreland county near Pittsburgh, confirmed to the Associated Press that searchers believe they have found the remains of the 64-year-old grandmother on the fourth day of searching.
Pollard was last seen four days earlier near a sinkhole above a shuttered coal mine. The sinkhole was reported to have opened directly above the abandoned mine.
The search for Pollard began on Monday after her family reported she went missing while searching for Pepper, her lost cat. Searchers quickly focused on the sinkhole that may have only recently opened up in the village of Marguerite. The sinkhole is reported to have a manhole-sized surface gap.
“The sinkhole, it appears that it was most likely created during the time while, unfortunately, Miss Pollard was walking around,” the Pennsylvania state trooper Steve Limani told ABC affiliate WTAE-TV. “There is no evidence of any time where that hole would have been here prior to her deciding to walk around looking for her cat.”
A challenging excavation has been ongoing at the site of the 70-year-old abandoned coal mine. The body has yet to be recovered.
“We’re going to dig, and we should be able to get, reach into the area where we believe she has fallen, and there is a complexity of dirt there, and slowly take it out,” Limani said.
Shortly after Pollard went missing, authorities were able to locate her five-year-old granddaughter in her parked car near the sinkhole. Despite being in freezing temperatures for about 12 hours, the girl was unharmed.
