Woman Killed on Silver Comet Trail

A woman was killed on the Silver Comet Trail:

From 11alive.com: Police in Smyrna are looking for a missing 54-year-old woman, last seen at the Silver Comet Trail Tuesday afternoon.

Friends and family of Jennifer Ewing, the missing woman, continue to turn out to search for her. Smyrna Police, as well as other local police agencies, are leading the search effort.

Ewing was last seen Tuesday around 1:00 p.m., riding her bicycle on the trail. Her family told 11Alive that she usually bikes about 25 miles down the trail, then turns around and bikes back, the journey beginning and ending at the trail head in Smyrna, near Nickajack Elementary School.

This is certainly horrible news for the family and for the entire SCT community. Somebody emailed to tell me that while it's not been released to the press yet, they have found her body.

Dave (who isn't my un-named source) sent out an email to the tri mailing lists:

O.K., Tri ladies. Please use the buddy system when running or riding outside--if you aren't already. I'm sure most of you have heard about the lady who went missing on the SCT of all places. However, there are times when that place is a ghost town. If you have a routine, switch it up a little. I'm sure you've all heard that before, but it's true. I just got back from the trail, and there were tons of people/cops walking the trail. My only problem is that I didn't see any cops actually inside the woods. It's like they didn't want to get dirty or thought their eye sight was that good. I walked about a tried to look as much as I could and combed about a miles worth of woods since I was already out there. It was an eerie feeling as I thought about how frightened she must've been. Be safe out there.

I'm with Dave... be safe out there. Always ride in pairs. Don't stop for people you don't know. Don't ride near dark.

Update 12:24PM: This is the first time joereger.com has ever scopped the local news outlets. That said, while I do have an original source, I've done nothing to verify the integrity of said source. A journalist would need to find a second source and would need to ask a few questions to make sure each source is credible. I'm taking a single email from a credible source at face value. Subtle difference, but important in the grand scheme of news/information flow/distribution.

Update 12:30PM: Ok, just sent my source an email asking how he/she found out.

Update 12:31PM: Terp just called. Our friend Pam (not my email source) was on the scene and called to tell Terp that they called off the search about a half hour ago. Apparently the body was found around mile marker 14. Pam is in a government agency and she said that the search team asked for two people from each agency. She got there and they were telling her how far to look into the woods, etc when they called it off. She said a bike and a water bottle were found with the body but they're not sure whether it was her bike.

Update 12:38PM: News is now up on wsb news. The update stamp is 12:26PM... so I scooped them at first but by the time I had a second source they had scooped me by five minutes.

Update 6:45PM: It turns out my mother knows this woman from her church. She said the family is devastated. Best wishes to them. Bill also knows the husband from work and said he was out of a planned meeting, as expected.

I talked to my mother tonight and described the feeling that I'm hearing from a lot of cyclists and triathletes. There's something personal about the Silver Comet Trail. We all feel like it's our place... our house... our trail. We certainly know that we share it, but the feeling is "my gosh, I can't believe this happened in this special place where we have all shared great memories."

And everybody mentions the notion that the world is a crazy place and that while things like this are horrible and evil, they're not wholly unexpected. Be safe out there.