Body Of Missing Gwinnett County Woman Found In Crawlspace: Police

GWINNETT COUNTY, GA — The body of a Gwinnett County woman who was first reported missing over the weekend was found in the crawlspace of a Barrow County home on Tuesday, police said.

Kim Mason, who lived in Stone Mountain, was first reported missed on Sunday, according to a Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Department spokesman. The department was handling the case as a missing person’s case and detectives were in the process of investigating the disappearance, the spokesman said on Wednesday.

On Tuesday morning, Mason’s body was found in the crawlspace of a home along Tanners Bridge Road near Bethlehem after the Barrow County Sheriff’s Department received information about the missing woman. A Barrow County Sheriff’s Department spokesman said in a news release that when officers arrived at the home, there was evidence of a crime and obtained a search warrant for the property.

Officers then found Mason’s body in the crawlspace under the home, but it was not clear what the cause of her death was. Police arrested Adam Heard in connection with Mason’s death, police said, and he was charged with concealing the death of another person and tampering with evidence along with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Additional charges are possible as the investigation continues.

Gwinnett County Police said that Barrow County is handling the investigation along with the Georgia Bureau of Investigations. According to media reports, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said that a locked board leading to the crawlspace is what got officers’ attention.

Smith said that officers noticed an area dirt in the crawlspace that had recently been disturbed.

[Deputies] began hand-digging, trying to find (something) and that’s when they found the body," Smith said, according to Fox 5 in Atlanta.