The same witness encountered a suspicious trailer and, months later, a sealed freezer tied to missing Oklahoma woman Talina Galloway.
MENA, Ark. — A witness who noticed a foul odor around a trailer in the Arkansas woods in June 2020 returned to the same area seven months later and found a taped-shut freezer, a sequence of events that helped investigators locate the remains of missing Oklahoma woman Talina Galloway.
The discovery became the physical turning point in an investigation that had begun with an unexplained disappearance in Wagoner County, Oklahoma. Galloway’s roommate, Kore Bommeli, had reported her missing in April 2020. After the freezer was found in January 2021, authorities identified the remains inside as Galloway’s and classified her death as a homicide. More than five years later, Bommeli entered a no-contest plea to first-degree manslaughter, desecration of a human corpse and unlawful firearm possession, ending the case without a murder trial.
The Arkansas witness first drew authorities’ attention to the wooded location on June 8, 2020. According to the Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office, the person saw a pickup towing a small enclosed trailer into an area near Mena and the Ouachita National Forest. The witness approached after the vehicle was left unattended, recorded identifying information and reported an unusual odor along with liquid inside the trailer. A deputy was dispatched after the witness contacted the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, but the situation did not at that point lead to the discovery of Galloway.
Months passed before the isolated Arkansas location became important again. On Jan. 14, 2021, the same witness was walking in the area and came across a white box-type freezer whose lid had been taped closed. The witness again noticed a strong odor. Information preserved from the earlier encounter helped authorities connect the vehicle involved with Galloway. Polk County deputies responded and found human remains inside the freezer. The Arkansas State Medical Examiner took custody of the remains and later identified them as Galloway’s.
That discovery answered one question in a case that had begun nine months earlier but immediately sharpened another: how had a woman reported missing from Oklahoma ended up dead in rural Arkansas? The medical examiner classified the death as a homicide. Wagoner County investigators, who had already become skeptical of the explanation provided for Galloway’s disappearance, were now working a homicide case that crossed state lines and ultimately led them to Wisconsin.
Galloway, 53, had last been in contact with people in early April 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic was creating widespread uncertainty and changing normal routines. A post attributed to her social media account said she believed she had COVID-19 and wanted to spend time away at a favorite lake. Bommeli reported Galloway missing on April 17 and told investigators that her roommate had been screened for the virus and instructed to quarantine. Authorities later said their checks showed Galloway had not been screened at a hospital and had not contacted her physician as described.
Investigators also focused on the circumstances surrounding Galloway’s departure. Later reporting said belongings including her vehicle, purse and wallet had been left behind. The Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office said Bommeli’s behavior and statements became increasingly important as detectives tried to reconstruct what had happened. The agency later described her accounts as inconsistent and said investigators came to believe she knew more than she was telling them. Bommeli eventually stopped cooperating, according to the sheriff’s office.
The identification of Galloway’s remains in January 2021 accelerated the case. Prosecutors filed a first-degree murder charge against Bommeli, along with desecration of a human corpse and other counts. Authorities learned she was in the Dane County, Wisconsin, area. Dane County deputies arrested her during a traffic stop on an Oklahoma warrant. At the time, the homicide accusation remained unproven, and Bommeli would continue to deny responsibility even after the case eventually ended through a negotiated plea.
Wisconsin then became important for a separate reason. Investigators tied Bommeli to a 2014 poisoning case involving her neighbors in the town of Middleton. Prosecutors there accused her of placing ricin in the neighbors’ home while they were away. The Wisconsin prosecution moved forward while the Oklahoma homicide case remained pending. On June 27, 2025, a Dane County jury convicted Bommeli of two counts of attempted first-degree intentional homicide. She later received a 25-year prison term followed by extended supervision.
By the summer of 2026, Oklahoma prosecutors were preparing to try the Galloway case. The Wagoner County docket reflects an extensive pretrial fight over evidence, including DNA material, expected witnesses, statements, photographs and other issues. Jury proceedings were approaching when the case changed course. On Sept. 4, Bommeli appeared with her lawyers and entered no-contest pleas under an agreement that reduced the first-degree murder allegation to first-degree manslaughter. The scheduled jury trial was removed from the calendar, and the state dismissed the remaining unresolved counts.
The Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office announced that the agreement produced a 35-year Oklahoma sentence. Its public statement said Bommeli received 28 years for manslaughter, seven consecutive years for desecration of a human corpse and a concurrent five-year firearm sentence. The online court docket contains a conflicting entry that lists one year, rather than seven, on the desecration count. It records the 28-year manslaughter term as concurrent with the Wisconsin sentence. Multiple officials and subsequent reports have described the Oklahoma sentence as totaling 35 years.
The plea also left an important distinction between the legal outcome and Bommeli’s position. Defense co-counsel Bryan Cannonie told KJRH that Bommeli remained firm in denying that she killed Galloway. He said the defense had expected to proceed to trial and believed evidence that would have been presented there would now remain largely unknown to the public. District Attorney Jack Thorp said he believed the evidence pointed to Bommeli and said Galloway’s family agreed with resolving the case through the plea offer.
The witness’s role stands apart from the courtroom dispute that followed. The person had no apparent connection to the missing Oklahoma woman when the trailer was first encountered in Arkansas. What mattered was the decision to preserve identifying information and alert authorities after noticing conditions that appeared unusual. When the witness returned months later and found the sealed freezer, investigators could connect the new discovery with information from the earlier report.
That sequence gave authorities the physical evidence needed to move the case beyond a disputed account of a disappearance. The discovery established that Galloway had died and placed her remains more than 100 miles from the Oklahoma community where she had been reported missing. From there, investigators could compare physical evidence with statements, vehicle information and other records developed during the missing-person investigation.
For investigators, the resolution came more than six years after a report that initially included an explanation tied to the confusion of the early pandemic. The case eventually involved law enforcement and court proceedings in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Wisconsin. Its defining investigative break, however, came from the same isolated patch of Arkansas woods where one witness twice noticed that something was wrong.
The Oklahoma prosecution is now closed by plea rather than verdict. Bommeli remains imprisoned, and no jury will hear the murder case prosecutors had spent years preparing. Galloway’s death, however, is no longer an unresolved disappearance. Authorities identified her remains, ruled the death a homicide and obtained felony convictions against the roommate who first reported her missing.
Author note: Last updated October 20, 2026.