THOMAS COUNTY, GA — Nearly four years after a man vanished during a police chase, authorities believe remains found near the county line may finally provide answers.
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A property owner's chance discovery while cleaning up an old house may have finally provided answers in a missing person case that had gone cold for nearly four years.
The Grady County Sheriff's Office believes human remains found on private property could belong to Andrue "Trent" Hires, a 23-year-old Thomas County man who disappeared in 2022 after a traffic stop turned into a chase.
"They were cleaning up an old house, and they were walking the property line and just come upon what they thought were human remains, and they called us," Deputy Sheriff Levi Newberry said.
Hires vanished after authorities say he bailed out of a moving car during a police chase and jumped from a bridge near Barnett's Creek along Highway 84.
"I mean, the decay and all, matches up to the time frame when he went missing. Now, on top of that, we've sent the remains off to be properly identified. We just believe that it may be him due to the time frame and the location of where he was found," Newberry said.
However, investigators are waiting for official confirmation from the crime lab before making a definitive identification.
The Grady County Coroner's Office has sent the remains to the Medical Examiner's Office in Atlanta for further evaluation by an anthropologist.
"We took possession of those remains, and we've sent them to the Medical Examiner's Office in Atlanta, Georgia, for the anthropologist to further evaluate the person who we think this is," Grady County Coroner Rusty Powe said.
The pending lab results could help investigators better understand how this person died.
Newberry believes the circumstances of Hires' disappearance may explain what happened after he jumped from the bridge.
"The water was real low, and there was a lot of rocks down there. So I don't know if he sustained some type of injury after jumping, and then maybe with his adrenaline, he was able to get as far as he did. I think you just need to ride up there and see the bridge, and it's a pretty good drop from where the deputy said he jumped off at," Newberry said.
The remains were discovered just a few hundred yards from the bridge in thick woods that are rarely traveled, which may explain why earlier searches with K-9s and helicopters failed to locate them.
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