Cayle Bywater, 29, Missing since 12/29/07 - Athens, GA(BODY FOUND)

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Woman Missing from Athens
 
The Athens-Clarke County Police Department has asked for the public's help in finding Cayle Bywater. Bywater, 29, is a white female who has been missing from Athens since December 29, 2007.

Bywater was last seen outside her home on South Milledge Avenue in Athens on Saturday, and spoke to a family member by phone about the same time. On Monday, neighbors noticed Bywater's dog running loose outside, and her back door was open. Inside the home were her keys, wallet, and cell phone, and her vehicle was parked at the residence as well.

Anyone with information should call:

* The Athens-Clarke County Police Department at 706-613-3330,
* Central Communications at 706-613-3345, or
* Detective Dustin Smith at 706-613-3888, extension 795.


Athens-Clarke County Police - Press Release
 
http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=108889

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UGA Grad Student Missing

POSTED: 5:33 pm EST January 2, 2008
UPDATED: 5:38 pm EST January 2, 2008


ATHENS, Ga. -- A mother of a University of Georgia grad student told Channel 2 she is afraid something bad has happened to her 29-year-old daughter.

Valery Bywater last spoke with her daughter, Cayle, Saturday. Two days later, neighbors noticed her dog loose outside her Athens home.

Athens-Clarke County police found Cayle's cell phone, wallet and keys still inside her house.

Police are asking anyone with information on Cayle Bywater's whereabouts to contact them.

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/14965025/detail.html

[pdh3]

Oh No! Another college student is missing!

This is so upsetting to me. Not only do I feel terrible for the family of these young people, but it terrifies me. I am the parent of a daughter in college, and I have another daughter who will be going to college next year, and a son who will go in 3 years. It seems as though these kids are disappearing into thin air, 2 or 3 a week. It's such a vulnerable population.
It sounds bad for this girl, since all her things were left at home, and her dog was unattended.

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Searchers looking for missing woman

By Joe Johnson   
Thursday, January 3, 2008

Dozens of rescue workers and volunteers are searching locations in south Athens with the hopes of finding a woman who went missing over the weekend.

The search for 29-year-old Cayle Bywater began this morning in Memorial Park, where someone saw Bywater with her dog at about 6 p.m. Saturday, according to Athens-Clarke police Lt. Greg Paul.

The search of the 90-acre park on Gran Ellen Drive off South Milledge Avenue wrapped up shortly after noon, when rescuers regrouped to scour University of Georgia’s intramural fields off College Station Road, another area police said Bywater liked to walk her dog.

A friend reported Bywater missing on Monday, after she didn’t show up for work Saturday or Sunday at Aromas wine bar in Five Points.

Katie Sims told police she found Bywater’s purse, cell phone and other belongings on her car, parked outside her house, where the basement door was open and Bywater’s dog was running loose outside, according to police.

Police do not believe foul play was involved, and that Bywater, who has bi-polar disorder, may have stopped taking her medication and wandered off.

The person who saw Bywater in the park Saturday described the woman as being disoriented, according to Paul.

One of the missing woman’s sisters, Tiffiny Cohen, thinks Bywater’s dog may have gotten loose and Bywater hurt herself running after it.

Another possibility, Cohen said, is someone may have seen her sister "stumbling around" in a disoriented state and "snatched her."

Cohen, Bywater’s mother and another sister came from Atlanta to look for their missing family member.

If Bywater is not found during the search of the intramural fields, Paul said, police will focus on other areas, yet to be determined.

Between 45 and 50 volunteers, police officers and firefighters are involved in the search.

The search will resume in the morning if Bywater is not found today, Paul said.

Anyone with information about Bywater may call the Athens-Clarke Police Department’s main number, (706) 613-3330, Central Communications at (706) 613-3345 or Detective Dustin Smith (706) 613-3888, extension 795.

http://onlineathens.com/stories/010308/news_search.shtml

[pdh3]

The fact that she has bi-polar disorder sort of changes things. Bless her heart. She could be anywhere, wandering around in a confused mental state, or she could be a victim of foul play. It raises the vulnerability bar a lot higher.

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Workers search Memorial Park lake for missing woman
 
Rescue workers drag the lake at Memorial Park on Friday for missing Athens woman Cayle Bywater. A Thursday search of the park area failed to yield results after someone reported they'd seen the woman at the park. A co-worker reported Bywater, 29, missing Monday after she failed to show up for work at Aromas wine bar in Five Points. The co-worker told police she found Bywater's purse, and other belongings on her car, parked outside her house, where the basement door was open and Bywater's dog was running loose outside, according to police. Police say Bywater, who has bipolar disorder, may have stopped taking her medicine.
Tricia Spaulding/Staff
A co-worker reported Cayle Bywater, 29, missing Monday after she failed to show up for work at Aromas wine bar in Five Points. The co-worker told police she found Bywater's purse, and other belongings on her car, parked outside her house, where the basement door was open and Bywater's dog was running loose outside, according to police. Police say Bywater, who has bipolar disorder, may have stopped taking her medicine.


http://onlineathens.com/stories/010508/news_20080105022.shtml

[MsVada]

looking at a georgia map, this is near the mountains too..... and she had a dog wandering around.....could this Hilton guy be some type of serial killer?

I pray this case isnt related to Merideth's

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http://findcayle.blogspot.com/

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Monday, January 7, 2008
Photo taken just before Cayle's disappearance


In a remarkable stroke of luck, Athens police have discovered a photograph taken in Memorial Park on the day of her disappearance that accidentally captured Cayle with her dog Oliver. We have enlarged and cropped the image to focus in on Cayle (the original photograph can be seen in a story posted this afternoon on the Athens Banner-Herald website, Police release picture of missing woman in park).
We now know what Cayle was wearing at the time she went missing - hopefully this will be the first crucial step in bringing her home!

http://findcayle.blogspot.com/2008/01/photo-taken-just-before-cayles.html

Larger image here: http://onlineathens.com/stories/010708/news_bywater.shtml

[Pita]

Does anybody know the distance between the lake at Memorial Park and Vogel State Park, where Meredith Emerson was found?

[Nut44x4]

Apx. 80 miles.

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Search Continues for Athens Woman

Last Modified: 1/8/2008 8:59:30 PM
Kristen Bywater has always looked up to her older sister.

"She's always tried to be there for me,” said Kristen. “She's always said family is the most important thing to her."

Cayle Bywater longed for family get-togethers. Now, she’s united her family on a mission to find her.

“She's so creative and so friendly and the one breaking the silence with a funny joke or story,” says Kristen. “She's very important to me."

Kristen is a middle-school teacher in Metro Atlanta, but for the past ten days, that job has been on hold while she tends to the business of finding her Cayle.

Right now, investigators do not believe Cayle's disappearance has any connection to the death of hiker Meredith Emerson, who was found in Dawson County after an extensive search.

The missing woman's loved ones spent Tuesday passing out a new flyer. Several family members have been away from their homes and jobs in Atlanta so they can concentrate on the search in Athens.

“I can't give up my life in Atlanta,” said Cayle’s mother Valery Bywater. “I can't give up looking for her either.”

The newest flyers include Cayle in the background of a photograph taken in Athens Memorial Park the day she vanished. The picture has generated some new information, but not enough.

Cayle was last seen walking her dog in the park on December 29th. Her dog was later found at her home, where investigators also found an open door, her car, keys, and cell phone.

All of it has her family baffled, and determined.

"None of us will stop until she's found,” said Cayle’s mother.

http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=109231

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Eyeglasses found that may belong to missing woman

Wednesday, January 09, 2008 2:35 PM
According to family members, someone has reported finding a pair of eyeglasses in Athens' Memorial Park that may belong to Cayle Bywater, the 29 year-old University of Georgia employee and grad student reported missing on New Year's Eve.

The eyeglasses were spotted under some brush by a garbage can near the pond that forms the centerpiece of Memorial Park, a park that is also home to a small zoo and a playground. Authorities continue to search for Cayle who worked at local wine bar Aromas as well as at UGA's College of Agriculture where she was a data management specialist. Cayle was last seen walking her dog in Memorial Park, which is near her home on South Milledge Ave., on Saturday, Dec. 29. The dog was later seen wandering the neighborhood.

http://www.sundaypaper.com/More/EditorsBlog/tabid/138/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1269/Default.aspx

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http://savannahnow.com/node/426846

Family believes Athens woman was abducted

Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 12:30 am
ATHENS - New evidence in the case of an Athens woman missing for almost two weeks suggests Cayle Bywater might have been abducted, her family said Monday.

Armed with a newly uncovered photograph of Bywater taken the day she disappeared, her mother and her sister have asked the public for help in finding the 29-year-old graduate student.

Bywater was bipolar and might have gone off her medication, leading Athens-Clarke investigators to believe she could have wandered off and gotten lost Dec. 29. Relatives, however, said her disorder makes her paranoid but not often disoriented.

"It's not in her nature to wander or not know where she was," said Bywater's sister, Tiffiny Cohen, of Alpharetta. "She's never done this before. She's never had bouts where she disappeared before."

Bywater was last seen in a confused state, chasing her dog near Memorial Park at about 5:30 p.m. Dec. 29. Her disorder might have made her more vulnerable to a predator, relatives said. Perhaps someone saw her behavior and decided to pick her up, they theorized.

"I fear someone got her," Cohen said Monday. "Someone could have her alive somewhere. ... Something's happened where she's not in control."

Police said they have not found any signs of foul play, but they haven't discarded the possibility either, said Athens-Clarke police detective Dustin Smith.

"That's something we can't rule out," Smith said. "We don't know, but there's no evidence for that."


Photo provides clues

Police do have one new clue to Bywater's whereabouts: A photograph taken at Memorial Park at about 4 p.m. Dec. 29 that shows Bywater in the background, wearing glasses, slip-on Vans sneakers, blue jeans and a bright blue zip-up jacket with red stripes along the sleeves and chest. She is with her dog, Ollie, a brown Vizsla, a breed of hunting dog.

"We know definitely she was (at the park), definitely what she was wearing, and her dog was on a leash," said Bywater's mother, Valery Bywater, of Alpharetta. "When they found her dog, it was not on a leash."

Ollie was found running loose in Memorial Park the afternoon of Dec. 30. When searchers took her back to the neighborhood last week to help sniff out Bywater, she stopped at South Milledge Avenue near her house, so relatives think that's the spot where she disappeared.

"We feel like that's where the leash separated," Cohen said.

Ollie tended to stay near Bywater, so if she was hurt and couldn't move or call out, relatives said, the dog probably would have stayed with her or gone for help.

An exhaustive search last week of 90-acre Memorial Park, the University of Georgia intramural fields and surrounding areas, including dredging a lake at the park, turned up no signs. The family now is focusing on handing out fliers and seeking information through the media, and plans to renew the search today.

Bywater could have gone missing from somewhere other than the park area, Smith said, but she last was seen there, and her car, purse, keys and cell phone were all at her house. Her back door was open, and she appeared to be in the middle of burning CDs on her computer when she left the house.


No link believed to case of dead hiker

Bywater's disappearance has been somewhat overshadowed by a similar case involving University of Georgia graduate Meredith Emerson, whose body was found late Monday. Police say Gary Michael Hilton, 61, of DeKalb County, kidnapped Emerson while she was hiking Jan. 1 at Vogel State Park and may have killed her.

Athens-Clarke police had a routine talk with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and do not believe there's any link between the two disappearance cases, Smith said. "At this point, there's no indication the two cases are related," he said.

Smith urged anyone who saw Bywater on Dec. 29 or Dec. 30 to call police and said that's the best chance of finding her.

"We really need people who might have interacted with her (that) Saturday or Sunday to call us," he said.

The Bywater family also has set up a Web site: www.findcayle.org.

[Nut44x4]

CALLING ALL VOLUNTEERS: Another organized search for Cayle is being planned at this time; the tentative date/time is the morning of Saturday, Jan. 12th, at Memorial Park in Athens. Please check back at this website over the next two days for exact details; we will need all the volunteer searchers we can get.

www.findcayle.org

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Eye Glasses Found at Park Confirmed to be Cayle's

It has been confirmed that the eye glasses located at Athens, GA National Park belong to Cayle Bywater. The glasses were located under a bush in close proximity to a trash receptical and restrooms. The evidence has been submitted to the local athorities for examination.

We hope this new evidence will help with the investigation as well as engage the GBI and help us locate Cayle.

http://findcayle.blogspot.com/2008/01/eye-glasses-found-at-park-confirmed-to.html

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Body Of Missing UGA Student May Have Been Found

ATHENS, Ga. -- Athens-Clarke County police said they have found a body in a lake at Memorial Park in Athens. The description of the body matches missing University of Georgia student Cayle Bywater.

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/15032851/detail.html

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http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=109419



Body Matching Descripton of Bywater Found

A body matching the description of UGA grad student Cayle Bywater, missing from Athens for the past two weeks, was found late Friday in a lake at the park where she went missing.

Bywater was reported missing from Athens Memorial Park on December 29. She was last seen in the park walking her dog.

Divers with the Hall County dive team, assisting the police from Athens, found a female body that does match the description of Cayle Bywater, 29. According to authorities, she was last seen walking in that park with her dog on December 29. Witnesses said she seemed disoriented. She was seen at around 4 p.m., and later at around 6 p.m. But after that point, no one was able to locate her.

Her family came to the park and helped with the search. Police searched throughout the park, and dragged the pond, finding nothing there. Bywater's glasses were found in the park earlier in the week.

Hall County divers were brought in on Friday, and at about 4:30 p.m., they located the body of a white female that, according to police, matches the description of Bywater.

According to Athens-Clarke County Maj. Mark Sizemore, the body is on its way to the GBI crime lab for an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

Sizemore said he was not ready to speculate if foul play was involved in the death.

According to witnesses, Bywater was disoriented the day she was last seen. Her family said that she was bi-polar, and may have been off of her medication.