JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Norma Ellis’s heart sank when police found human remains in the woods off Braddock Road in Northwest Jacksonville last week.
She fears it's the body of her daughter, Sherry Prather, an Oceanway mother who disappeared in October.
"Deep in my heart, I feel like that it’s her," said Ellis.
Prather’s family told Action News that homicide investigators from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office came to their Oceanway home last week to collect items from that could link the missing mother’s DNA to the decomposing body found in the woods.
Prather's 23 year-old daughter, Mandy Gonzalez said, "Just knowing they had to come to see if the body matches up with her; it's hard."
Friends and family last saw the 43-year-old mother at Oceanway’s Boots n Bottles tavern on October 12.
Action News helped uncover surveillance video days later from a business next door to the bar showing Prather riding away on the back of a motorcycle with a man. Her family believes that video might contain the last images of Prather alive.
Gonzalez said, "There's people found all over the place, and then we get the call that it might be her. You know it's scary."
Investigators say the remains have not yet been positively identified.
