Missing 20-year-old last seen leaving Georgia jail found dead 100 miles away, cops say

A 20-year-old woman was last seen leaving a Georgia jail in August 2023 before she vanished, authorities said.

Now, skeletal remains found 100 miles away in Tennessee have been identified as hers, according to police.

Maury-Ange Faith Martinez was reported missing Aug. 28, 2023, according to the Gwinnett County Police Department.

She left the county jail in the Atlanta metro area a week earlier, and her mother said she was going to pick her up from the courthouse when her daughter called to say someone else was giving her a ride.

“I thought that it was somebody who worked at the facility. So I thought, ‘Oh, that seemed to make sense,’” Anita Darling told WRCB. “I had a conversation about it with her. It still seemed a little strange. I got off the phone with her and felt uneasy about it.”

Martinez disappeared after that. An investigation by local law enforcement agencies revealed Martinez’s last known location was in Cobb County.

Martinez’s loved ones constantly shared her photo and missing person information on social media in the months following her disappearance. Her mother sought a private investigator to continue searching for her daughter.

Then in January, skeletal remains were discovered in a rural area of Chattanooga, the Cobb County Police Department said.

The Hamilton County Medical Examiner confirmed the remains belonged to Martinez, police announced May 31.

The confirmation of her daughter’s death left Darling “torn apart,” according to WXIA-TV.

Her mother said until “we all exit this existence,” she would find bits of Martinez everywhere she looked.

“I’ll see her in good people who love animals, and plant lovers, I’ll see her in crazy colorful pants I find at the thrift store, and in coffee houses scribbling her thoughts in notebooks while enjoying the sunshine,” Darling wrote on Facebook. “I’ll see her when there is a garden of white daisies or a jar of marmalade. Most of all I’ll see her in myself when I look in the mirror.”

Her mother said the University of Tennessee will keep her daughter’s remains for further study on people of Latin descent.

Her sisters agreed Martinez would have liked that.

“Losing Maury has been horrifying but the girls and I have had a lot of love and support each step,” her mother said on Facebook.

Investigators are working to determine what happened to Martinez and are asking anyone with information to come forward.

Martinez, who was affectionately called Marmalade by family, would have turned 21 on June 3.

This story was originally published June 5, 2024 at 11:09 AM with the headline "Missing 20-year-old last seen leaving Georgia jail found dead 100 miles away, cops say."