It’s been nearly two months sinceDebbie Collier, 59, was found dead under mysterious circumstances in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest in Georgia. Her family is still searching for answers about how and why she died.
“The last two months have just been so hectic, surreal and frustrating and heartbreaking,” Collier’s son Jeffrey Bearden, 33, tells PEOPLE. “My family is trying their best to stay together, stay a unit and just try to remember my mom during all of this time too.”
Bearden tells PEOPLE he has been frustrated with the lack of information he has received from law enforcement regarding his mother’s case. According to Bearden, most of the information he has received about the case has come via the media — and he says his family wasn’t invited to the Harbersham County Sheriff’s Department’s press conference regarding his mother’s case. When he reached out to the sheriff himself, he said he lost even more confidence in the investigation.
“I had spoken to their sheriff, Mr. Joey Terrell, and I had a pretty unpleasant phone call with him,” Bearden says.
Bearden says that during the 10-minute phone call, Terrell laughed at him as he was expressing his concerns about his families safety and the status of the investigation into Collier’s death.
“My entire goal of the conversation really was just to try to be better up to date, because there is a lot of information that my family has received through the media that we necessarily haven’t gathered from law enforcement, and that’s been incredibly challenging,” Bearden says.
Debbie Collier and her son Jeffrey Bearden.Courtesy Jeffrey Bearden
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up forPEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletterfor breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.
Since news broke of Collier’s death in early September, the case has garnered national and international attention and put her family in the spotlight.
“People are going to start reaching out to my family again, calling people, emailing us, going up in our yards, entering our yards when we don’t want them to, taking photos of our homes,” Bearden says. “There’s so much that my family is dealing with already and when I started explaining that, that’s when he started to laugh. And then I have to explain, ‘I don’t know what’s funny about me telling you my truth and explaining this to you.’ And then, that’s when he made the statement, ‘I’m trying not hang up on you.'”
Bearden says his wife was also on the call with him and spoke to the sheriff after she noticed how flustered and frustrated Bearden was becoming with the exchange.
PEOPLE reached out to Sheriff Terrell and the Habersham County Sheriff’s Department for comment last Friday, but has not received a response.
“I want help from the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office to understand and be updated on any information before it’s released to the public, before it’s released to the media,” Bearden says. “I would like to know how and if my concerns can still be addressed again, because I don’t want another family to have this experience that I’ve had. And I especially don’t want them to have to engage with law enforcement and have such a negative experience, and then not be able to have some resolution to give them the confidence that they need to keep trusting them to investigate their loved one’s homicide.”
Debbie Collier and Jeffrey Bearden.Courtesy Jeffrey Bearden
Son’s Questions About Surveillance Video
Collier’s daughter immediately called her mother’s phone “but she did not pick up,” the report says.
Collier was last seen leaving her house on Sept. 9 with only her ID and debit card. The Habersham County Sheriff’s Office has released surveillance footage from the Family Dollar in Clayton, Ga., which allegedly shows Collier, 59, entering the store at 2:55 p.m. on Sept. 10, the day she was reported missing, and leaving 14 minutes later.
“That video is concerning for me on several different levels, to be honest with you,” Bearden tells PEOPLE. “It’s just how they verified it, her mannerisms, her posture, her appearance. There’s just several things that I’m left feeling very uneasy about when watching that video and the only way that I’ve actually seen that footage is through online, unfortunately.”
Bearden says the Sheriff’s Department did not show the video to him or his family before releasing it. He says he’s also concerned about the lack of timestamps on the video.
“My mom was my best friend,” Bearden, who was working in Baltimore, Md., at the time of his mother’s death, tells PEOPLE.
“My mom was someone who really taught and demonstrated to me and the people around her what the idea of unconditional love is,” he continued. “She was someone who wanted to make sure that if she came across you, you felt heard, you felt seen, and she would be someone who would latch onto you.”
He adds: “It’s such a big loss for our family to try to navigate, because she was such a beautiful soul.”
source: people.com
