Friday, February 5, 2010
Authorities Say Remains Are Female
Although no positive identification has yet been made, authorities indicate that remains found on the property of a Wayne County couple accused of murdering their son’s fiancee, are those of a human female.
Remains located on the property of Steven Ray Beersdorf, Sr., and wife Sylvia were dispatched to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab for DNA testing. Initial tests indicate the remains are female. It will take considerably longer, however, before DNA testing needed to positively identify the remains, will be completed.
The remains were reportedly scattered about a ten-foot area, situated approximately 250 yards behind a two-story log cabin on the couple’s 1099 Swinging Bridge Road property, between Waynesboro and Clifton.
Authorities indicate that teams with the Federal Bureau of Investigation sifted through layers of dirt to recover the flesh and small bone fragments from what they called a burn circle.
Authorities believe the remains to be those of Rose Goggins, age 21. Goggins had lived with the Beersdorfs, along with her ten-month-old son. Her fiance, Steven Beersdorf, Jr., had been stationed at Fort Shelby, Mississippi at the time, awaiting deployment to Iraq.
The Beersdorfs had reported Goggins missing on January 16. They told authorities she had disappeared two days before while en route to Lawrenceburg to attend her first EMT class. Her car was found abandoned and burned on a McNairy County logging road on January 15. The car’s GPS system indicated that it had been driven directly from the Beersdorfs’ home to McNairy County.
Since their arrest on charges of first degree murder, both Beersdorfs have remained incarcerated at the Lawrence County Jail.
Evidence in the case is expected to be presented to a Wayne County Grand Jury in coming days.
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