A desperate search for a missing Philadelphia woman has taken a heartbreaking turn after human remains were located Saturday.
The grim discovery was made behind an abandoned school near Awbury Arboretum, where police had been scouring the area for 23-year-old Kada Scott, missing since October 4.
Investigators returned to the site around 10 a.m. Saturday after receiving a “very specific” anonymous tip overnight, according to First Deputy Commissioner John Stanford.
The remains, believed to be those of a female, were found buried in a shallow grave in a heavily wooded section of the property, WPVI reported.
By late afternoon, they had been removed from the scene and turned over to the city’s Medical Examiner’s Office to confirm the person’s identity. Stanford said police have been in contact with Scott’s family.
“We have been in communication with her family as to this process and in the fact that we have recovered a human being,” he said.
Scott was last seen October 4 clocking in for her overnight shift at an assisted living facility in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood. Her family expected her to be home the next morning. But she never made it.
Investigators say she was not at work for very long that night before she left the facility. However, there were no surveillance cameras in the parking lot, they said.
When Scott did not return home that morning, her parents called the senior living facility and got what they called “conflicting reports” about her whereabouts.
Her parents met police in the parking lot where they found her car. Her phone, iPad, keys, and other belongings were not inside the vehicle, WPVI reported.
On Wednesday, police arrested 21-year-old Keon King in connection with Scott’s abduction. He also faces another kidnapping charge in what investigators described as a disturbing “pattern.”
“Mr. King is the last person, we believe, to be in contact with her and that he was in contact with her when she went offline,” Assistant District Attorney Ashley Toczylowski said at a press conference earlier this week.
Investigators are still working to determine how King and Scott knew each other, though they believe the two had crossed paths in the days leading up to her disappearance.
Before she vanished, Scott had reportedly told people she was being harassed, though it remains unclear if King was the person she was referring to. King is being held on $2.5 million bail.
