GAFFNEY, S.C. (WSPA) – Cherokee County Coroner’s Office officials identified a woman whose body was found in a ravine behind a home in Gaffney Thursday night.
We reported earlier that Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office investigators started assisting Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department investigators Thursday in regard to a missing person report filed from that jurisdiction several days earlier.
According to the release, Cherokee County investigators followed up on leads and were looking for a vehicle associated with the missing person with air support from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.
At around 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Cherokee County investigators were able to obtain a search warrant for a home and property on Union Highway in Gaffney.
Sheriff’s Office investigators and deputies executed the search warrant and found the woman’s body that was decomposing in a ravine behind the home.
On Monday, Coroner Dennis Fowler identified the woman as Jamie Lynn Buser, 35, of Chicago, Illinois.
“The combination of autopsy results, fingerprints and dental records were used to make positive identification of the body that was in a state of decomposition. Miss Buser’s body was discovered Thursday night in a thickly wooded ravine behind a residence at 2420 Union Highway. Her body was covered with trash from the ravine. Based on the investigation, the body appeared to have been there since the afternoon of September 23. I have ruled Buser’s cause of death is due to gunshot wound. The manner of death has been ruled homicide,” Fowler said.
According to Fowler, a family member said that Buser left her home in the Chicago area on Sept. 19 and was headed to Charlotte, N.C.
Buser had reportedly been staying in a motel in Charlotte since that time and was reported missing by a friend on Sept. 24 after she didn’t respond to phone calls.
Marshall Depree Lee, 42, of Gaffney, was taken into custody following an interview with investigators. Cherokee County Sheriff Steve Mueller told 7 News Lee confessed to being involved in the woman’s death, and said the crime happened at his home.
He was taken to the Cherokee County Detention Center and is currently being held for murder. Other charges are pending at this time.
