Body Found in Pond Believed to Be Woman Who Went Missing 2 Years Ago After Calling Mom for Ride By Jillian Frankel 11

Texas authorities believe human remains uncovered this week belong to a 34-year-old woman who disappeared in Texas more than two years ago.

Courtney Martin was last heard from on May 16, 2023, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. She vanished after calling her mother from an intersection and requesting a ride, the Smith County Sheriff’s Office said, according to CBS affiliate KYTX.

“The phone call to her mother was her last, and no one has seen or heard from her since,” the sheriff’s office said two years after she went missing, per the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which also reported that authorities believed foul play was involved.

Her last known location was less than two miles from her mom’s home, but Courtney was nowhere to be found when her mom arrived within moments to pick her daughter up, KYTX reported.

“We looked for her for months and months, exhausted all investigative means of finding her,” said Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith in a video shared by ABC affiliate KLTV.

“Fast forward to July the third of this year. We got information that some young men had found a backpack belonging to her next to a pond,” he said, adding that her belongings were found in New Harmony, Texas.

He also noted that in early July, they sought help from a Texas Department of Public Safety dive team to search the pond, but those resources were needed in Kerr County to respond to devastating flooding of the Guadalupe River in the area.

Human skeletal remains were found “almost immediately” when the dive team began searching on Tuesday, Aug. 26, Sheriff Smith said, adding, “That is what we believe to be the remains of Courtney Martin.”

“This will be an all-hands-on-deck criminal investigation,” he continued.

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The remains have since been taken to the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Science in Dallas for identification, Smith said.

“There’ll be no I undotted or no T uncrossed until this comes to a final conclusion in the investigation as to what happened to Courtney,” he added.

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“The mother said earlier that she is glad to have some closure. But, obviously, she wants to know what happened to her daughter, and we want to know as well,” Smith said, according to KLTV.

The Texas Department of Public Safety and the Smith County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to requests from PEOPLE for additional information about the investigation into Martin’s disappearance.