Missing mom found dead after taking kids to school, Florida cops say. Her ex is charged
Kayla Atwood dropped off her kids at school Jan. 3, but she never picked them up, Florida police said.
A week later, her body was found in a shallow grave on the side of the road.
Now, her ex-boyfriend, 34-year-old Mikhail Fountain, has been charged with homicide, the Pensacola Police Department announced at a news conference Jan. 12, shared by WEAR.
Atwood’s family desperately searched for the 32-year-old mom of four after she never returned to her kids’ day care and school Jan. 3. The mystery deepened when Pensacola police shared that she was last seen getting into a yellow Penske moving truck.
“She would not just leave her children,” her sister-in-law said in an interview with WEAR. “She’s a tough girl. She’s been through a lot. But in the end, she’s never run away.”
Her family reported her missing Jan. 5.
Atwood’s phone was traced to the same street her ex-boyfriend lived on, Pensacola police chief Eric Randall said in the news conference.
When investigators interviewed him, they said they found Fountain deleted text conversations with Atwood and erased surveillance footage outside her home. Authorities charged him with tampering with evidence before Atwood was reported missing, Randall said.
The evening of Jan. 11, eight days after Atwood disappeared, cadaver dogs found her body in a shallow grave in a wooded area off the side of the road in Escambia County, police said.
Evidence pointed to Fountain, police said. When they went to re-arrest him, they said he hid from them, leading to a resisting arrest charge.
He is being held without bond in Escambia County jail on charges of homicide, battery, tampering with evidence and resisting arrest.
Jealousy is a probable motive, Randall said. He added Fountain has not been cooperative with investigators.
After her body was found, her family gained some sense of closure, her sister-in-law said.
“I’m gonna always miss her. I’m gonna always think of what happened,” she told media outlets, describing the mother of four as a “gem.”
The investigation is still ongoing.
Pensacola is in Escambia County in the western edge of the Florida Panhandle.
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