Missing teacher, A car with a body inside believed to be that of missing teacher Terrilynn Monette was found Saturday in a bayou in New Orleans, authorities said.
The car and body were
found in Bayou St. John by a diver with the Slidell Police Department,
who volunteered to dive the waterways in the search for Monette,
Detective Daniel Seuzeneau of the Slidell Police Department, said.
The body is believed to be that of Monette, he said in an e-mail statement to CNN.
Monette, 26, was last seen March 2 leaving
Parlay's Dream Lounge in New Orleans, where she had been celebrating
with friends her nomination for a "Teacher of the Year" award.
Monette's mother, Toni
Enclade, told CNN that investigators have notified her the car has been
found, but not whether the body is her daughter.
"To know that she could have possibly been there for three months," she said, overcome with emotion.
Enclade said she does not know when she will be given a definitive answer by authorities.
"I can't even begin to go there right now," she said. "I'm in shock. I can't believe this. I just can't believe this."
Authorities have focused a
large part of their search efforts on the waterways because Monette
would have had to have driven across the bayou to get from the bar to
her home.
In mid-March, an independent search and rescue team from Texas volunteer to comb the lagoons and waterways.
It discovered a car in the bayou, but it was later confirmed not to belong to Monette.
Family and friends of
Monette put up a billboard in New Orleans and created a Facebook page,
"We Love You Terrilynn Monette," to help generate tips in the search for
Monette.
The diver who found the
car and body, Slidell Police Officer Mark Michaud, has been "working
closely with the Monette family" because of his expertise in diving
recoveries, Seuzeneau said.
When Monette, of Long
Beach, California, learned of the "teachNOLA" program, which sends
educators to New Orleans to teach in impoverished areas, she packed her
bags and headed to Louisiana.
"I always wanted to be a teacher, and what better place to teach than New Orleans, where passionate teachers are needed most?" she said in a 2011 video obtained by CNN affiliate WDSU.
In her first year of
teaching second grade at Woodland West Elementary School, Monette turned
one of the lowest-performing classes into one of the highest achieving.
It earned her a "Teacher of the Year" nomination in her school district.
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