Officials said an Oklahoma mother of six was discovered de*ad and wrapped in an old carpet wedged into a ditch days after going on a date with an unknown man.
According to a Facebook post by the Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office, Makayla Meave-Byers, a 30-year-old teacher’s assistant, went missing on September 15 after getting into a Chevrolet pickup truck driven by a tall, balding man with a dark beard and sunglasses.
Pottawatomie County Undersheriff Travis Dinwiddie told People magazine that the woman, who was married but in an open relationship, left her home in Macomb with the man voluntarily after “supposedly” agreeing to go on a date with him.
When Meave-Byers did not return from her outing, authorities launched a search for her that included drones and K-9 dogs.
The woman’s family members went on a desperate search for her as well.
Meave-Byers’ cousin discovered her body in a nearly 4-foot-deep culvert near a creek running beneath a road a few miles from her home on Wednesday.
Dinwiddie described the 30-year-old victim as being wrapped in waterlogged “old pieces of carpet.”
The medical examiner’s office confirmed Meave-Byers’ body was discovered in the culvert on Friday.
Although there were no obvious signs of trauma on the woman’s body, and her cause of death has yet to be determined, Dinwiddie said foul play was “absolutely” suspected.
While raising her four stepdaughters and two adopted children, Meave-Byers worked as a kindergarten teacher’s aide at Macomb Public Schools.
“She’s a great mother,” Meave-Byers’ older sister, Andria Meave, told KFOR before the woman was found de*ad. “It’s all she cares about.”
Frank Byers, the missing mother’s husband, previously begged for help in finding her, writing on Facebook: “She means the world to me.” She is literally the foundation of our family. I adore her to pieces. She’s a wonderful mother and a wonderful woman.”
The 6-foot-6 mystery man who was last seen with Meave-Byers has yet to be identified, and investigators have stated that they have no suspects.
