The first time I heard fear in her voice, I didn’t recognize the woman on the other end of the line. Elsie and I had grown up together in the foster care system in Amherst County, two kids just aging out who somehow found each other. We’d been through everything together, but I had never heard her like this. She was terrified.
She kept saying she was afraid her husband was going to kill her. She had plans. She was going to leave Virginia, drive north to Maryland, meet up with me. We had it all figured out.
She just needed to get out of that house. I waited for her to show up. She never did. The last time her daughter Sativa heard from her was June 25th, 2023.
Sativa called asking for a recipe, and her mother texted back. Something felt off, but Sativa brushed it off. She figured her mom was just working. A couple of hours later, Elsie’s job called asking if Sativa had heard from her.
Elsie had never shown up for her shift as the director of nursing at Fairmont Crossing Health and Rehab. Elsie’s stepsister Victoria knew something was deeply wrong. Her sister wouldn’t have just left. She wouldn’t have abandoned her children or her career.
She had a life. She had plans. The next day, June 26th, Fred Wigington Jr. , Elsie’s husband, filed a missing person’s report.
He told deputies he’d last seen her at their home on Pendleton Drive. He said she was wearing pajamas, packing her things. She left behind her cell phone and her beloved dog. He made it sound like she had just walked away.
We trusted the police. That was our mistake. Sativa called them over and over. She told them her mother was scared for her life.
But the Amherst County Sheriff’s Office decided Elsie was a “voluntary missing person. ” Because she was an adult, they said, she could choose to disappear. A woman texting that she feared her husband would kill her meant nothing to them. The case went cold.
Completely cold. The administration didn’t want to touch it. It wasn’t until after the new year, when a new sheriff took over, that anyone even seemed to care. By May of 2024, the Aware Foundation of Virginia had joined the search.
A missing person’s poster went out. Elsie was described as 5’4”, 185 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. Her case was featured on a national news series. Sativa spoke out publicly, begging for answers.
“They should have looked into it,” Sativa told reporters. “They should have searched her property just to make sure she wasn’t there somewhere. ”
One officer had told her he’d seen a similar case where the missing woman just showed up around the holidays. Sativa held onto that hope.
But the holidays came and went. Her mother never came home. Elsie’s family held a press conference. They thanked the new administration for finally taking the case seriously.
The investigation was now involving the Virginia State Police, the Lynchburg Police Department, the U. S. Marshals, and even the FBI. They had searched more than one location.
They were waiting on evidence results. “Our sister is not here to speak for herself,” Victoria said. “That’s what family does. Family picks up and does what they have to do.
We will be your voice, Elsie. ”
As the one-year anniversary of her disappearance approached, the family went door to door with flyers. They were desperate. They were losing hope they would ever find her alive.
“We’re going to keep going until we find our answer,” one family member pledged. “We won’t stop until we find out what happened. And if someone did do something, we will find out who did it. ”
On July 9th, 2024, law enforcement finally searched the property on Pendleton Drive that Elsie shared with Fred.
Deputies swarmed the area, using canines and preparing to be there all day. The new sheriff, Jimmy Ayers, wouldn’t say much, but he didn’t sound optimistic. He said they’d decided to search the property based on interviews and the ongoing investigation. The 1.
5-acre property was covered in debris. It was going to take a while to sort through. A little over a month later, on the morning of August 14th, 2024, investigators discovered human remains on that property. Fred was taken into custody that same day.
He was initially charged with concealment of a dead body. Those charges would later be upgraded. When Victoria heard the news that remains had been found, she described it as bittersweet. “There’s always that glimmer of hope that she may still be out there,” she said.
“But I think that myself and the family, we kind of knew that this was going to be the end result. ”
On August 20th, the medical examiner’s office confirmed the remains were Elsie’s. Victoria told reporters that her sister had been found beneath a slab of concrete. Fred’s charges were upgraded to second-degree murder, then to first-degree murder.
He was held without bond. The search for justice didn’t end with Fred’s arrest. The investigation continued, and eventually, it led to another person: Patricia, Fred’s ex-wife. On January 13th, 2025, Sheriff Ayers held a press conference to announce Patricia’s arrest for her role in the case.
He explained that things hadn’t added up during the investigation, so they had dug deeper. Patricia was charged as an accessory after the fact. Patricia had been interviewed by police three times. Each time, she claimed she knew nothing.
She said Fred had told her Elsie was still alive. She insisted Fred would never hurt anyone. It wasn’t until August 19th, after Elsie’s remains had been found, that Patricia finally admitted the truth. She told investigators that Fred had confessed to killing Elsie and burying her under the concrete.
She admitted she had withheld that information. The reporters at the press conference pushed for more details. One asked if Patricia had been living in the house on Pendleton Drive. The sheriff confirmed that she had moved in with Fred the same weekend Elsie was murdered.
She had lived in that home, right above the grave where Elsie’s body lay, for over a year before Fred was arrested. Patricia appeared in court a few days later. She was granted a $2,500 bond and ordered to have no contact with Fred. Elsie’s sister, Mary Jordan, was furious.
“That’s not enough for her, injustice-wise,” Mary said. “She’s allowed to go back to doing what she was doing before she was arrested with no condolence to my sister whatsoever. She misled police for over a year. She lived in the trailer that my sister was buried underneath for over a year.
She’s had almost two years to sit here and do whatever she wants to do with no condolence to the family at all. It just hurts, because to me, she took my sister’s life just as well, knowing what had happened to her and not saying anything. ”
The trial finally came. On May 2nd, 2025, Fred Wigington Jr.
was found guilty by a unanimous jury of first-degree murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. The verdict was read in a courtroom full of emotion. Elsie’s family stayed seated, biting back tears and sobs as the jury’s decision was announced. Mary Jordan said she was relieved.
Tracy Coleman reflected on the weight of it all. “Nobody walks away from this unscathed,” she said. On July 30th, 2025, Fred was sentenced to life in prison plus three years. He also entered an Alford plea regarding the concealment of Elsie’s body.
Patricia’s case moved forward as well. Her defense team claimed she didn’t actually believe Fred when he confessed. They said she thought he was just trying to scare her. The prosecution argued that Patricia had lied repeatedly and delayed the investigation.
The judge sided with the prosecution and certified her charges to the circuit court. She could still face trial. In the wake of Elsie’s death, Tracy and Sativa started a fundraiser to cover her final expenses. With the help of donations, they were able to lay Elsie to rest.
Her remains were cremated at Whitten Funeral Home and placed in a mausoleum in a graveyard that holds her grandmother and her mother. Her sister Sativa is now working to put together a celebration of life at one of Elsie’s favorite spots. Elsie was a dedicated nurse who spent 28 years caring for others. She was a mother.
She was a grandmother to two little boys. She was a sister, a friend, a person who spent her life helping people. In the end, it took a change in leadership, national attention, and tireless advocacy from her family to get the investigation moving. The people responsible for her death were brought to justice.
But her family is still left with the weight of a year of lost time, and the knowledge that her case was dismissed when she needed help the most. Victoria said it best when asked what she wanted people to know. “We are working with a year of lost time. For them to be able to confiscate or receive the evidence and DNA that they need is critical.
”
Elsie is gone. But her family made sure her voice was heard.
