Missing Marilane Carter Update: Body Found Inside Hidden Car Could Be Of Kansas Mom

A body found Tuesday inside a hidden car could likely be of missing Kansas mom Marilane Carter. A woman’s remains were found in West Memphis, Arkansas, during the search for 36-year-old Carter.

The body was found inside the same car – a gray 2011 GMC Acadia – that Carter was last known to be driving, the Crittenden County Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday. The Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School graduate was last seen Aug. 1, when she left home and was headed toward Birmingham, according to the Overland Park Police Department.

Crittenden County Chief Todd Grooms said Carter’s uncle, who had come to Memphis to join in the search for his niece, was the first one to find the car around the area her cell phone last pinged. After spotting the body, he informed the sheriff’s department, and deputies, Arkansas State Police and the FBI secured the scene.

"I was hoping for a more positive outcome, where she would show up somewhere and had maybe been somewhere getting some mental health treatment,” Grooms said, adding Carter’s family was "dealing with grief and the loss of a loved one.”

The vehicle registered to Carter appears to have been driven into an empty storage container on a private property. Carter’s purse and credit cards were found inside the vehicle. Authorities said that they are yet to determine how the driver made it onto the property and into the container. The cause of death is yet to be revealed.

Carter, a mother of three living in Overland Park, Kansas, was planning on traveling to Birmingham, Alaska, to be near her family and seek mental health treatment. Her husband, Rev. Adam Carter -- who is the lead pastor at Leawood Baptist Church in Kansas -- said he purchased a Southwest Airlines plane ticket, but Carter abruptly decided to drive herself.