SHELBY COUNTY, Tenn. — Taquila Hayes disappeared more than two months ago, but investigators were just notified a week and a half ago.
Now, WREG is finding out more about what may be going on behind the scenes in the case of the missing 41-year-old Cordova mother.
C.T. Freeman is a retired police detective and currently runs a forensic consulting business. We talked to him about the bizarre case of Hayes. Her family hasn’t heard from her since the end of May.
“I always tell new detective commanders that I may talk with over the years the two cases that will come back to bite you in the behind are missing person cases and juvenile cases,” Freeman said. “You really have to be on top of those.”
Family said they would’ve notified investigators of her disappearance sooner, but her husband told them she had been around the home. But as it turns out, he told detectives he hadn’t seen his wife since the beginning of June when she left without her phone and car.
TBI agents and detectives with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office searched the couple’s Cordova home off Starcross Ave. for almost 12 hours Monday.
“In a situation like that, it’s kinda like peeling an onion,” Freeman said.
Freeman said the first thing they would do is a walk through.
“Once they do that, they secure the residence, then they start with the crime scene people,” Freeman said. “They start kind of taking it down layer by layer. So the first thing they are looking for is any obvious evidence. That could be blood spatter on the wall, torn clothing, it could be a sign of a struggle or a fight.”
Then they go to the next level.
“They start looking for trace evidence,” Freeman said. “This could be, I mean literally, microscopic. So that’s what they do, they take it a level at a time like that.”
He said cases like this are multi-faceted, and investigators won’t give up.
“She’s out there somewhere,” Freeman said. “She may be alive, and she may not be, but she deserves justice, and her family deserves justice.”
Investigators are still asking for the public’s help. If you think you might have information into Hayes’ whereabouts, call the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office at 901-222-5600.
