(Germantown, TN) The husband of a missing school teacher has been charged with murder and his bond set at one million dollars.
Police say he murdered Heather Palumbo-Jones and left her body in the woods in Eads, Tennessee.
Friends of Heathers spent the last week looking for her body and say they knew all along that she was likely dead, murdered by her husband.
Wednesday, police confirmed those suspicions.
“We are glad we have Heather and they have Chris,” said Friend Melissa Smith.
It’s not the ending anyone really hoped for but at least shes found.
Friends searched for Palumbo-Jones for more than a week.
“You don’t know what you are going to find. Your foot hits something hard and you think ‘oh my good is that her?’ but it’s a branch,” said Friend Joanna Young.
Instead, police say it was her estranged husband who led investigators to her body.
“Mr. Jones provided information that led us to her body in Eastern Shelby County, Tennessee,” said Deputy Chief of Police Rodney Bright.
It was in the woods in Eads, Tennessee.
Police say Chris Jones murdered her after showing-up to her Germantown home last Monday night uninvited.
Friends and family say he had been aggressively stalking her for weeks.
As police built their case against him this last week, he remained free living next door to Elizabeth Key.
“I don’t have to be in fear of going home anymore at night, not knowing what he might do,” said Key.
And now that Jones has been charged with murder, Friends of Heather’s say they can also start to find peace.
“Without police being relentless on this it just wouldn’t have happened,” said Smith. “We wouldn’t have had our answers and it would have been horrific.”
Still, it’s not the ending anyone really wanted.
“She had lost 150 pounds on her own and she was looking forward to that new life physically she had created for herself,” said Young.
Friends tell me she was always quite and reserved around Chris but a free and lively spirit when he wasn’t.
She had planned to travel with her mom to Florida and Europe this Summer.
