'BODY FOUND: Missing Mother is possible muder victim' 11.11.07

BODY FOUND: Missing mother is possible murder victim
By J.R. WELSH
November 11, 2007
jrwelsh@sunherald.com

KILN -- Three months of uncertainty ended Saturday when the body of a young mother missing since August was located alongside a power line cut-through in a wooded rural area of Hancock County.
Authorities tentatively identified the remains as those of 29-year-old Brandi Hawkins Laurent during a search organized by Texasequusearch and involving about 150 local volunteers. A group of civilians and Harrison County deputies on horseback found the body in tall grass about 100 yards from County Road 528 in a remote section of the county.
"We found her about where we thought we would," said Cindy Wisdom, the search commander for Texasequusearch. "But we found her a lot faster than we had expected."
The body was discovered roughly a mile from the trailer park where her husband, Leo Laurent, said he had last seen her at midnight on Aug. 3. The following day, Leo Laurent said in a sheriff's report that his wife left home on foot after they argued.
Leo Laurent said she had been using drugs for several days and disappeared wearing only a shirt, shorts and flip-flops. He moved from their trailer shortly after his wife vanished.
Brandi Laurent had two daughters, ages 2 and 12. The youngest still lives with Leo Laurent, her father. The oldest, Brandi Laurent's daughter by a previous marriage, has been living elsewhere since her mother disappeared.
The search began early Saturday at a command post at the Hancock County Fairgrounds. Volunteers fanned into the woods near Laurent's home, on foot, driving four-wheelers and on horseback. It took the horseback searchers only about 10 minutes to locate the body after they rode into a wide power line field off County Road 528 at 10 a.m.
Within minutes after the searchers headed back to the road, radios began to crackle. Hancock County deputies Sgt. Eddie Smith and Lt. Matt Barnett arrived and began stringing yellow crime scene tape in the field.
Brandi Laurent's status quickly changed from missing person to possible murder victim.
Rita Blaize-Watson, lead sheriff's investigator on the case, said she hopes an autopsy will yield more information on how Laurent died. Dental records and DNA testing are being used for an official identification.
Leo Laurent was not present at the search for his wife, which had been well publicized in advance. He had previously announced on an Internet site that instead, he would be attending a soccer tournament in Jackson this weekend, after his birthday on Friday.
Saturday's search followed weeks of building speculation that Brandi Laurent had been killed and her body disposed of in the rugged, rural countryside. But her mother, Anita Moody, had arrived at the search command post in a hopeful frame of mind at 7 a.m. Saturday, three hours before the body was found.
"Brandi needs me to be as strong as I can be," she said then. "I won't believe that she's out there dead until I see it."

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