The remains of a woman who fell into a sinkhole were found Friday, four days after she disappeared while looking for her cat, a state police spokesperson said.
Officer Steve Limani said the body of Elizabeth Pollard, 64, was taken to the Westmoreland County Coroner's Office for an autopsy.
More details will be provided at a news conference scheduled for this afternoon at a nearby fire station.
The announcement comes on the fourth day of the search for Pollard, who was last seen Monday evening, searching for her cat Pepper near a restaurant less than a kilometer from her home in the village of Marguerite, in Pennsylvania.
Axel Hayes, Pollard's son, said a state trooper told him and other family members that her body had been found.
“I was hoping for the best, I really was,” Hayes said in a telephone interview. “I was hoping she was still alive, maybe in a coma or something. I wasn't expecting all that.”
Pollard's family reported him missing around 1 a.m. Tuesday as temperatures in the area fell below freezing.
The research focused on a sinkhole with a manhole-sized surface breach that may have recently opened in the village of Marguerite. The sinkhole was above an old coal mine, last mined about 70 years ago.
Police said they found Pollard's car parked about twenty feet from the sinkhole. Pollard's five-year-old granddaughter was found safe inside the car.
Hunters and restaurant workers who were in the area hours before Pollard disappeared told police they did not notice the sinkhole.
The State will see if the mine created a sinkhole
Efforts to find Pollard included lowering a polar camera with a sensitive listening device into the hole, although it detected nothing. Crews removed a huge amount of dirt and rocks to try to reach the spot where they believe the grandmother fell into the nine-metre-deep sinkhole.
Pollard grew up in Jeanette, about nine miles from Unity Township, where she lived much of her adult life. She previously worked at Walmart and was married for over 40 years.
Neil Shader, a Department of Environmental Protection spokesman, said the state's Office of Abandoned Mine Reclamation will examine the site to see if the sinkhole was indeed caused by mine subsidence.
In June, a giant sinkhole in southern Illinois swallowed the center of a football field built atop a limestone mine, destroying a large light pole and leaving a gaping chasm where teams of children often play . No one was hurt.
In 2023, a chasm that in 2013, he fatally swallowed a man who was sleeping in his house in suburban Tampa, Florida, reopened for the third time, but it was behind a fence and caused no damage to people or property.
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