A young woman's case is reopened nearly 25 years after her remains were found In the spring of 1997, a sense of unease settled over the family of Paula Thomason. At 34 years old, Paula, a Caucasian female, had recently embarked on a new chapter in her life, moving to Greenville, South Carolina, and starting a new job. She was known by her loved ones as a caring and optimistic person, someone who found her greatest joy in helping others. This was evident in her recent role as a foster mother to a six-month-old infant.
However, in the days leading up to her disappearance, her family noticed a change. More frequent calls to say 'I love you' were accompanied by unsettling comments about fearing for her life, though she would never elaborate on the source of her fear.
Paula Thomason was last seen by her family on March 19, 1997. After just one day at her new job at a bib factory, she vanished. Concern grew into a formal missing person report filed by her worried family. For nearly two months, there was no word of Paula’s whereabouts. The search came to a tragic end on May 8, 1997, when a passerby discovered her remains in a remote area along the Old Belton Highway in Anderson, roughly 26 miles from where she was last seen. Her body was found at an abandoned dump site, partially concealed by debris and wrapped in an unidentified material. Investigators, who were able to identify her through fingerprints and the clothing she was last seen wearing, believed she had been killed at another location and her body had been at the dump site for over a month.
The coroner's examination determined that Paula Thomason's death was a homicide caused by strangulation. The Anderson Police Department launched an investigation, but despite their efforts, the case quickly grew cold. There were no significant leads and no suspects were ever publicly named. For years, Paula's family was left without answers, the story of her final days a painful mystery.
Nearly 25 years after her death, in February 2022, the Anderson Police Department announced they were reopening Paula Thomason's cold case. Detectives expressed a renewed hope that advances in forensic technology and the passage of time might encourage someone with information to finally come forward. They made a public appeal for any tips that could help them piece together the events that led to her murder and bring a long-awaited sense of closure to her surviving family members. To this day, no arrests have been made in connection with the murder of Paula Thomason, and her case remains an unsolved homicide.
