Jessica Folds’ life and family have emerged from an investigation that began with two unidentified bodies beside a rural road.
LANETT, Ala. — Jessica Folds was a mother of three whose relatives remembered her warmth, her wide circle of friends and a smile that could brighten a room. Authorities say the 47-year-old Alabama woman was strangled by her boyfriend before he died while attempting to leave her body in a wooded area near her home.
Folds’ death became public in stages. The first official account did not include her name or describe her life. It reported only that Chambers County deputies had found a woman and a man dead near a vehicle parked on County Road 86 on June 10. Autopsies and additional investigation later identified Folds as a homicide victim and Daniel Robbins, 44, of Macon, Georgia, as the man authorities believe killed her.
Much of the attention surrounding the case has focused on the extraordinary circumstances of Robbins’ death. District Attorney Mike Segrest said Robbins suffered a heart attack while trying to move Folds’ body into the woods. Yet the central crime, investigators say, was the strangulation of Folds and the effort to conceal what had happened to her. Robbins’ collapse prevented the body from being moved farther and left the two of them together at the site where deputies discovered them.
Folds lived only a few miles from the wooded location, according to reports citing local authorities. Her obituary said she had lived and worked in several communities in the Auburn-Opelika area, part of eastern Alabama near the Georgia line. It described a woman who formed connections in the places where she worked and lived. She was survived by three sons, relatives and friends who gathered to remember a life that extended far beyond the circumstances of her death. The obituary said Folds “touched the lives of many” through her love for others and what her family described as a “heart of gold.” Such memorial language is personal rather than investigative evidence, but it records how those closest to her wanted her to be known. It also counters the way homicide victims can be reduced in public accounts to the final acts committed against them. Folds was a parent and community member before she became the subject of a state death investigation.
Authorities have not released a detailed account of her final hours. They have not said where she was last seen alive, whether anyone heard an argument or when investigators believe she was strangled. Segrest said the case appeared to involve a domestic incident, but a specific motive has not been announced. The length and recent condition of Folds’ relationship with Robbins also remain unclear in the public record. Those missing details limit what can responsibly be said about how the violence began.
What investigators have described begins at the rural road. A passerby reported a truck that appeared to have been abandoned. When deputies reached the area shortly after 12:20 p.m., the engine was still running. The driver’s door was open, and the tailgate had been lowered. The unusual condition of the vehicle prompted a search of the woods. The person who reported the truck had seen two shapes nearby but initially mistook them for mannequins, Sheriff Jeff Nelson later said.
Deputies found Folds with her arms raised above her head and Robbins lying nearby in a fetal position. Officials have released those details to explain how the scene appeared, but they have not disclosed unnecessary graphic information. The sheriff’s office called in the Alabama State Bureau of Investigation and the Chambers County Coroner’s Office. Both bodies were transported to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences so medical examiners could determine how each person had died.
Until those examinations were completed, officials did not publicly characterize the deaths as a homicide and a medical emergency. The forensic findings established that Folds died from strangulation and Robbins from a heart attack, Segrest said. Investigators then interpreted drag marks running from the truck toward the bodies as evidence that Robbins had been pulling Folds into the wooded area. Authorities believe he collapsed during that effort and died at the disposal site.
Nelson said investigators do not believe Folds was killed in the woods. The site appeared to have been selected as a place to leave her body after the strangulation occurred elsewhere. That conclusion shifts part of the inquiry away from County Road 86. To complete the chronology, investigators would need to determine where the assault happened, how Folds was placed in the truck and when Robbins began the trip to the remote area. Officials have not released answers to those questions.
Robbins had a known heart condition, according to a former wife who spoke with a television station. That information is consistent with the finding that he died from a heart attack, although authorities have not disclosed his complete medical records. His death removed the possibility of an arrest or interview and left investigators to reconstruct the killing without an account from the person they identified as responsible. No statement from Robbins explaining his conduct has been reported. The absence of a prosecution also shapes how the official conclusion must be described. Investigators and Segrest say the evidence showed Robbins strangled Folds and was trying to dispose of her body. Because Robbins died before