MAYSVILLE, Ky. — The body of a missing Maysville woman who was last seen in late December was found Saturday, the Maysville Police Department said.
Eugenia Harris Cooley was last seen walking near her home in the Great Meadow Homes community on Dec. 21 at around 1 p.m. A surveillance camera captured Cooley walking toward Clark Street.
Police said officers, alongside officials from Buffalo Trace Search and Rescue, located Cooley's body near the area of Wald Park in Mason County. Officials did not reveal how Cooley died.
In January, Cooley's family told WCPO they feared something bad could have happened to her.
The 47-year-old had moved to Maysville in 2024 after living for some time in Florence. Despite moving more than an hour away from her children who reside in Cincinnati, Cooley's eldest daughter, Keyila Isome, said she always stayed in contact. Isome picked her mother up to bring her to Cincinnati for a few days before dropping her back off in Maysville on Dec. 13.
"I gave her a hug, a kiss. She told me she loved me. I told her the same thing and I walked out," Isome said. "Everything seemed fine. It didn't seem like she was worried about anything. She didn't seem like she was sad or depressed. I didn't get no alert as to think that something was wrong with her."
Days later on Dec. 19, Isome told WCPO that she and her sister, Jasha Westbrook, received a strange text from Cooley.
"It said, 'I love all my children. I miss you. I love you' and I text her back and I didn't get no response back. I felt like something might have been wrong after I didn't get a response," Isome said.
After more days of no response, the siblings said they drove to Maysville on New Year's Eve to check on their mother. Her front door was unlocked but Cooley wasn't at home. Her keys were hanging on her bedroom doorknob and her wallet was inside a duffel bag.
The siblings found that odd and called the police to report their mother missing. They stayed at her home that night in the hopes that Cooley would return, but she never did. That's when their mother's disappearance took an even stranger turn.
"We were going through some things and we checked the trash — two trash bags that were in her personal trash (can) — and found purses of hers that were thrown away and all of our childhood pictures — all of our pictures, all of our photo albums — everything was in the trash," Jasha Westbrook said. "Both of her phones were stuffed inside of a glove and also in the trash and so that kind of rubbed us all the wrong way and we ended up calling the police back over."
Cooley had no car, no known boyfriend and no history of mental health issues or drug use.
Detective Ryan Hull with Maysville police said it's uncommon for people to go missing in the community, calling the case unusual. Given the circumstances around Cooley's disapperance, he said foul play could have been a possibility.
Police said their investigation into Cooley's death is ongoing, and they're working with the Mason County Coroner's Office and the State Medical Examiner's Office.
