Horrified tourists watch woman drag daughter's body into woods
INSIDE EDITION - A horrifying and mysterious scene unfolded in West Virginia Sunday, when tourists stumbled upon a car crash only to watch as a driver dragged a limp body into the roadside hills.
Chilled to the core, the couple, who were reportedly in town from New York to attend a bluegrass festival, said they got far more than they'd bargained for as they watched the woman drag the blanket-wrapped body into the woods.
Authorities got a call around 11:20 a.m. from the shocked tourists, which prompted West Virginia State Police to visit the scene near the Virginia border.
Police said they soon found 37-year-old Erica Newsome, along with the body, on an old logging road.
The body was that of Newsome's 11-year-old daughter, police said.
Cops have not released the cause of death but Newsome was arrested on charges of concealing the body of her daughter, Kaye-lea Plummer.
"It was obvious that the 11-year-old did not die from injuries from the accident," West Virginia State Police Sgt. Herby Barlow told the Pocahontas Times. "Her injuries were non-motor vehicle injuries."
In her Miranda statement, cops say Newsome told them she had picked her daughter up from her bed and put her in her truck on August 4.
Newsome reportedly told cops that Kaye-lea did not move, eat, drink, speak or use the restroom for two days during the drive from where they lived in Jacksonville, Fla.
Newsome was reportedly en route to where the girl's father and Newsome's estranged husband, Donath Plummerm, lives in Buffalo, N.Y.
Speaking to Jacksonville's News 4 Jax, Plummer called his wife an excellent mother and said that she must have "snapped."
Cops, meanwhile, have not made any final determinations.
“It is still a very active investigation,” Sgt. Barlow said.