MISSING GRANDMOTHER, 67, FOUND DEAD INSIDE SUITCASE AFTER TWO PEOPLE BRING IT TO KANSAS FIRE STATION

A disturbing investigation is underway in Wichita, Kansas, after the body of a 67-year-old grandmother who had been reported missing was discovered inside a suitcase brought to a local fire station.

The woman was identified as Lorretta Moody, whose remains were taken to the Sedgwick County Medical Examiner’s Office after police responded to Wichita Fire Station 22 on September 16. Authorities are investigating her death as a homicide.

TWO PEOPLE ARRIVED WITH A SUITCASE

According to the Wichita Police Department, fire personnel at Station 22 received an urgent request for police assistance at around 6:25 p.m. on September 16.

Two people had arrived at the station carrying a suitcase and told firefighters that a body was inside.

Police officers responded and opened the suitcase, where they discovered the remains of a woman. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Investigators later identified the woman as Lorretta Moody, 67. Police confirmed that Moody had already been reported missing before her body was discovered.

The two people who brought the suitcase to the station were questioned by detectives. Authorities have not publicly identified them as suspects and have not said what connection, if any, they had to Moody.

POLICE CALL IT A HOMICIDE

Wichita police are treating Moody’s death as a homicide and are working to establish a timeline of what happened.

Investigators have been interviewing people, reviewing evidence and attempting to determine how Moody died and how her remains came to be transported to the fire station.

Police have not publicly released a cause of death.

As of September 24, no arrests had been announced. Investigators also said they had no information indicating an ongoing threat to the public.

FAMILY WANTS LORRETTA REMEMBERED FOR WHO SHE WAS

For Moody’s family, the circumstances surrounding her death have made an already devastating loss even harder to process.

Her granddaughter Lexi Shafer told local media that her grandmother should not be remembered simply as the woman whose body was found inside a suitcase.

“That was our family, she wasn’t just a woman in a suitcase,” Shafer said.

Another granddaughter, Alexis Trotter, said the family wanted people to remember Moody as a loving grandmother and great-grandmother.

“She’s not just another person that’s on some cold-case file,” Trotter said. “She’s a human and she was somebody’s family member.”

Trotter described Moody as someone who was full of life and said family meant everything to her.

STRANGE MESSAGES DEEPEN THE MYSTERY

The family has also described receiving unusual messages around the time Moody’s remains were discovered.

According to reports cited by PEOPLE, Shafer said she received a call from a man using her grandmother’s boyfriend’s phone on the day the suitcase was found.

The following morning, before Moody had officially been identified, Shafer’s fiancé reportedly received messages from the same man, including one saying that “they have found your grandmother.”

The circumstances surrounding those messages remain part of the family’s account and have not been publicly established by police as evidence of who was responsible for Moody’s death.

$5,000 REWARD OFFERED

The investigation remains active.

On September 24, Crime Stoppers of Wichita and Sedgwick County announced a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to an arrest in Moody’s homicide.

Police are asking anyone with information about Moody’s death or the events surrounding the suitcase to contact homicide investigators.

For a family still searching for answers, the case remains painfully unresolved.

Lorretta Moody was not simply a name in a police investigation. She was a grandmother, a great-grandmother and a member of a family now left waiting for answers about what happened to her.