MARSHALL COUNTY, Miss. — A Collierville, Tennessee, murder mystery continues to unfold.
WREG has covered the disappearance of Sarah Vinick from the beginning, and now weeks after her body was found in Mississippi, deputies have even more questions: who put her there, and why?
Marti Miller is a private investigator hired by the parents of 26-year-old Vinick to find out what happened to their daughter.
“Sarah always called her momma four and five times a day, they were in always in constant contact, and then when she couldn’t get her on the phone, and when the phone went dead, she’s going, ‘What’s wrong?'” Miller said. “Something was wrong. Something didn’t feel right. And she was absolutely right.”
The Marshall County Sheriff’s Office said Vinick’s body was found floating in a creek off North Red Banks Road by two hunters last Christmas Eve.
Her mother initially reported her missing in Collierville in November.
Miller has been spent the last three month tracking Vinick’s every move.
On Nov. 5, 2019, surveillance video shows Vinick leaving her Cordova Airbnb and getting into a dark-colored pickup truck.
But the mystery deepens a couple of days after her disappearance when WREG spoke with a man who said he knew Vinick. He didn’t want to be identified but said he picked up Vinick on Nov. 6. At this point, investigators might say the story is a little hard to believe; however, detective haven’t spoken with this man.
“She was a sweet girl,” he said. “She was just all over the place — a wreck trying to figure out what she was going to do.”
He said the two stopped briefly at his house, but he claimed when he came back to this car, Vinick was unresponsive.
“I was giving her CPR while going 80 miles per hour,” he said.
The extraordinary detail might be questioned by investigators, but he claimed he drove to St. Francis hospital, which seemingly could also be verified by surveillance, and claimed Vinick was awake when they arrived.
“When she realized where we were, she started freaking out, and I told her, ‘You’re awake, and you’re fine. I’ll just drop you off at your Airbnb. I just pulled up here to make sure you were okay,'” he said.
Another detail that might raise questions, he claimed Vinick jumped out of the car and took off running just moments after he said he was performing CPR. In any event, Vinick’s family never saw her since last November.
They told their private investigator they tried calling her, but she couldn’t be reached by phone.
“They have been through hell and back, and they haven’t gotten all the way back yet,” Miller said. “I had heard from many people that had called stating that she was in a freezer; that she was deceased, and she was in a freezer.”
Month and a half later, hunters found her body in a Marshall County creek on Dec. 24.
The medical examiner ruled Vinick’s death an accidental overdose, but the Marshall County Sheriff’s Department said her body was dumped into the creek.
“Who took her body to that location on North Red Banks Road and put her body in that creek?” Miller said.
If you know what happened to 26-year-old Sarah Vinick, call the Marshall County Sheriff’s Department at 662-252-1311. All calls are confidential.
If you have story you would like WREG to profile on Manhunt Monday, email us at manhuntmonday@digital-stage.wreg.com.
