As authorities continue to investigate what happened to Georgia mom Debbie Collier—who was found dead and severely burned in a ravine in September—her son is begging for “privacy and respect” for his family.
“Please, again, put down your bows and arrows and stop hunting my family. Please respect my mother,” Jeffrey Bearden urged the public in a Wednesday statement to The Daily Beast. “Would you want you and your family’s worst day to be exploited in this manner? I truly hope no one ever has to go through this experience and be left as haunted as I am.”
The demand for privacy comes amid media reports that investigators are now investigating the 59-year-old’s death as a homicide. The Habersham County Sheriff’s Office previously ruled out that Collier was kidnapped or that it was a suicide.
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Police say that Collier was last seen alive at a Family Dollar store buying a refillable torch lighter and a tarp on Sept. 10. In surveillance footage obtained by The Daily Beast, the mother-of-two is seen buying several items and appears calm.
Minutes after leaving the store, at around 3:17 p.m., Collier's daughter, Amanda Bearden, alleged she received a nearly $2,4000 Venmo payment from her mother. The payment came with a cryptic message that read: “They are not going to let me go love you there is a key to the house in the blue flower pot by the door.”
Bearden and Collier’s husband called the police that evening to report her missing. Less than 24 hours later, police said Collier was found in a ravine about an hour from her Athens, Georgia, home.
An incident report obtained by The Daily Beast also notes that Collier was found “laying on her back, grasping a small tree with her right hand.” The mother’s remains were found near a burned tarp and a red total bag. Details of Collier’s cause of death are still pending.
Collier’s son said he is “absolutely disturbed” by the way he and his family has been treated since his mother’s murder. Several outlets have detailed his sister’s criminal history—which includes an arrest for domestic violence and battery—as well as her boyfriend’s past.
“I cannot help but find this type of reporting to be extremely lazy, disgusting, and disrespectful, as my family and I have been provided with NO information or evidence from any law enforcement officer or agency to validate or support this type of guesswork,” the 33-year-old said. “My entire family has been hunted since my mother’s passing by strangers, independent sleuths, Youtubers who peddle tacky shirts and merchandise about the worst day of my life, a distant family member who decided to victim shame my mother on the internet, and the reporters who continue to use my mother’s name for clickbait.”
“The public has absolutely obliterated any possibility of a normal experience of grief for my family. For that, I am not sure I will ever be capable of forgiveness,” he added.
