MUSKEGON COUNTY, Mich. – Autopsy results of a body found buried on private property in Whitehall are expected this week after police got a tip on the location of the remains last Friday.
This tip came 13 months after the disappearance of a Muskegon County mother Bobbie Maples. Maples, 32, disappeared just days after giving birth to her baby girl.
Investigators confirmed that the tip they receivedthat led to Whitehall was tied to the Maples case, but the remains have not been positively identified.
Several times in 2015, FOX 17 spoke with Maples’ family and friends who face an agonizing wait for any answers.
Maples gave birth to her baby girl Dec. 4, 2014, Maples. Then, only 11 days later, she went missing.
Now 13 months later, her daughter and family still have no answers.
“The hospital said the last time they saw her was that Sunday, she came in to feed Ariana like she did every day and said she was going to go home, change her clothes and come back and she never showed, that was the last she was seen,” said Muriel Maples to FOX 17 in January 2015, one month after Maples went missing.
FOX 17 also sat down with Maples’ brother Daniel, who said Maples had been excited to turn things around for her family’s future.
“Bobbie has had a rocky past and she was looking very forward to a bright new future with her baby and she had been staying clean and she had been holding down a job,” said Daniel Maples.
“She was going forward with her life and was very excited about that.”
Some of Maples’ friends told FOX 17 she may have been hiding something. Shawn Williams told FOX 17, during a December 2014 interview, that Maples placed an ad on Backpage, a website to solicit services that can include sex.
Now family continue to search for answers and organize, regularly updating their Facebook page, Help Find Bobbie Maples. On Mother Day’s 2015, her family posted a heart wrenching video of Maples’ daughter releasing a balloon with a message to her mother.
Then, last Friday, Jan. 22, a tip led the state police and Roosevelt Park Police to find human remains buried outside of a barn on the private property, 5265 Nestrom Rd. in Whitehall.
This home is just a block away from Michillinda Road, where family said some witnesses said they last saw Maples the weekend before she went missing. Investigators confirmed that the tip they received was tied to the Maples disappearance, but the remains have not yet been positively identified.
“I think somebody did something to her, there`s no way first of all she`d leave Ariana,” said Muriel.
FOX 17 spoke with Muskegon County Prosecutor D.J. Hilson Wednesday who said they are waiting on the medical examiner’s office at this point.
“I spoke with the pathologist [Tuesday] morning, they are still conducting a few other things in order to give us final confirmation of who this person may be,” said Hilson. “Until they give me the ‘we’re 100-percent sure this is who it is,’ we’re kind of at a standstill at this point in time.”
If you have any information on this case, you are asked to call Silent Observer: (616) 774-2345.
