An autopsy was scheduled on Monday in New Orleans to confirm that the body in a car that was pulled from the Bayou St. Johns on Saturday afternoon was that of Terrilyn Monette, an elementary school teacher missing for nearly 100 days, NewsMax reported.
Using a portable scanner device, the Slidell Police Department dive team found Monette's submerged car close to a bridge at the corner or Harrison Avenue and Wisner Boulevard in the Bayou. The 26-year-old Monette went missing on March 2 after driving away in her black Honda Accord from a bar in the 800 block of Harrison about 5 a.m., news reports said.
"It's a really sad moment," State Rep. Austin Badon told the newspaper. He had been spearheading search efforts for Monette. "There's some sense of closure, and I'm glad, though it wasn't the outcome I had hoped for."
Drowning was cited as the cause of death, according to the Orleans Parish Coroner's Office. There were no signs of trauma to her body, said John Gagliano, chief investigator for the Orleans Parish coroner's office.
LSU forensic dentists confirmed Monette's identity through dental records, Gagliano said. Toxicology results are pending and the results would be ready in about two weeks, he said.
Monette's disappearance was covered widely in national media.
New Orleans police led the search efforts and reviewed hundreds of hours of surveillance tapes to try to determine what happened, The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported. Other cars were also pulled from nearby water bodies as part of the search.
