A 67-year-old Kansas great-grandmother who had been reported missing was found dead inside a suitcase dropped off at a Wichita fire station, and police say no one has been arrested in what they are now investigating as a homicide.
Two unidentified individuals carried a suitcase to Wichita Fire Department Station 22 on September 16 and told authorities a body was inside. The remains were later identified as Lorretta Moody, a 67-year-old grandmother and great-grandmother who had already been reported missing to police before the grim discovery.
Wichita police confirmed they are treating the case as a homicide. Officers interviewed the two people who delivered the suitcase, but as of the latest update, no arrests have been made and the investigation remains open. The department told the New York Post it is continuing to "follow up and speak with anyone who may have information."
Police have not disclosed a cause of death. They have not said whether the two individuals who brought the suitcase to the fire station are considered suspects, witnesses, or persons of interest. The identities of those two people have not been made public, nor has any possible connection between them and Moody been explained.
Alexis Trotter, Moody's granddaughter, spoke to local station KWCH about the woman her family lost. Her words painted a picture of someone whose life mattered far more than the circumstances of her death.
"She wouldn't want to be known as the person who showed up in a suitcase at a fire station. She would be wanting to be known as the loving person that she was, a loving grandmother and a loving great-grandmother."
Trotter did not hold back about what happened to her grandmother. She told KWCH plainly:
"This is just evil. There's no other word for it."
She described Moody as someone who lived for her family, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, all of them. "She was spunky, I'd say, for a little person," Trotter told the station. "She was full of life."
Trotter also issued a direct appeal to whoever is responsible.
"We want to get the people who did it, and whoever did it, I hope they come forward and realize this isn't something that should just be normal, everyday life."
"She's a human, and she was somebody's family member," Trotter added. "She was somebody's blood."
Wichita police have offered no public timeline for when Moody was reported missing, who filed that report, or how long she had been unaccounted for before her body turned up at Station 22. The gap between her disappearance and the fire station discovery remains unexplained.
A GoFundMe page set up to help cover Moody's funeral expenses had raised nearly $800 toward a $5,500 goal. The family is left grieving a woman they loved, and waiting for a justice system that has yet to produce a single arrest.
Every victim deserves to be more than a case number, and every family deserves answers, especially when someone treats a 67-year-old great-grandmother's body like something to be discarded.
