Missing woman found dead in submerged car, NC cops say. She was ‘full of so much joy’
A 26-year-old woman was found dead in a submerged vehicle days after she went missing, police in North Carolina told media outlets.
Statesville resident Sequoia Chamon Cotton vanished on Dec. 22, according to a missing person’s poster shared on a community Facebook page.
“Sequoia was supposed to attend a Christmas Bar Crawl with her sister, but she never showed up,” the post said. “This has never happened before. Now, her phone is going straight to voicemail.”
On Dec. 24, the North Carolina Highway Patrol responded to a report of a crash along the overpass of Interstate 40 crossing the South Yadkin River in Iredell County, WSOC reported.
Cotton was driving a 1999 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight when it ran off the road, hit a bridge railing and overturned. The vehicle then sank into the river below, according to the news outlet.
Excessive speed is suspected to be a factor in the crash, the highway patrol told Queen City News.
“She was only 26 years old,” one of Cotton’s older sisters wrote in a GoFundMe. “Full of so much joy and sunshine.”
Statesville is about 41 miles north of Charlotte.
This story was originally published December 27, 2022 at 7:23 PM with the headline "Missing woman found dead in submerged car, NC cops say. She was ‘full of so much joy’."
