A Chattanooga woman found a body slumped against a tree, with only a jacket hiding two gunshot wounds to the head.
She said, "That isn't what I see, I don't think."
But it was, more than 16 years ago, nneighbors say Mary Louise Evans, 44, was tossed out like a piece of trash.
In December of 1995, a wooded area near Bedford Avenue was a popular dumpsite.
So, when a neighbor, saw a pair of shoes on the top of the hill, she did not think twice.
Well, that was until she found a bloody newspaper near by.
She tells us, "I backed up and I went to look again.
That is when she found the mother of three dead, just two days after Christmas.
Justin Kilgore, with the Chattanooga Police Department, says, "Later on that day investigators found out there was a missing person's report listed on this person."
Family members made that report when Evans did not come home that night.
They say Paul Leon Hayden, her son-in-law, was the last person to see her alive.
Kilgore adds, "I think she may have been trying to help him out to any extent she could."
Police say Hayden had called Evans to ask for a ride while he was home from a Knoxville community correctional facility.
He was granted a temporary release while serving a couple years on a robbery charge.
So, on December 26th police say Evans met him at a local gas station, 14 hours later, she was in a body bag.
Kilgore adds, "There was blood located inside the car. It would lead me to believe that's where she was killed."
Evans' abandoned car was found miles from her body on North Hickory Street.
Kilgore says, "According to Hayden, he did see her, saw her briefly, and then went on his way."
Headlines quickly surfaced, and no shortage of them either.
Especially after police found out this, before Hayden met up with his mother-in-law, he met up with her daughter, his estranged wife, and threatened her with a gun.
He later plead guilty to misdemeanor assault.
But the news reports quickly stopped, when several pieces of evidence turned up nothing.
Kilgore says, "16 years, over time people tend to talk, and it may be that time where people say, hey, I need to come forward and talk about this, get this off my chest."
Now, residents are still left wondering could the killer be Hayden, a man who has been wanted since 2002 on an aggravated robbery charge, or who?
Police say Evans could have met someone after she met up with Hayden.
Afterall, they say, it is an area known for robberies and car jackings.
Police tell us they are in the process of trying to re-test pieces of evidence found at the scene.
If you have any information on this murder call Chattanooga Police.
