BY SARAH STEPHENS
ELMORE/AUTAUGA NEWS
Top photo: Officers take one of two subjects in custody in Montgomery Saturday. (Photo credit to EAN reader.)
Autauga County Sheriff Joe Sedinger is praising his investigators, as they continue to look into the discovery of a body last week in Autauga County. His office is awaiting official word from the Department of Forensic Sciences on the identity of the female body that was located in a storage unit in Prattville. While the facility is located in the city, the Autauga County Sheriff’s Office is lead on the case.
Without a positive identification, Sedinger said they cannot know for sure if it is the body of Britta Anne Lashley, 36. She had been missing since February of last year, but the sheriff’s office was not contacted until June of this year. She was known to associate with James Michael Barrett, 52. She was also known to frequent Autauga and Montgomery county.
Detectives worked to piece together the limited information and the trail led them to two men, Barrett, and Edward Hiram Norman, 60. They were taken into custody Saturday in Montgomery County at an RV Park off Washington Ferry Road. They face charges of Abuse of a Corpse.
The state code for Alabama Defines Abuse of a Corpse as:
2021 Code of Alabama
Title 13A – Criminal Code.
Chapter 11 – Offenses Against Public Order and Safety.
Article 1 – Offenses Against Public Order and Decency.
Section 13A-11-13 – Abuse of Corpse.
Universal Citation: AL Code § 13A-11-13 (2021)
Section 13A-11-13
Abuse of corpse.
(a) A person commits the crime of abuse of a corpse if, except as otherwise authorized by law, he knowingly treats a human corpse in a way that would outrage ordinary family sensibilities. Abuse of a corpse may include knowingly and willfully signing a certificate as having embalmed, cremated, or prepared a human body for disposition when, in fact, the services were not performed as indicated.
(b) Abuse of a corpse is a Class C felony.
Barrett and Norman are tentatively scheduled for a first appearance this afternoon in Autauga County court, and we will follow up if new information comes from that hearing.
Specifics of how the body was located, cause of death, place of death and how the body ended up in a storage unit are not being released at this time, as this is a very active investigation.
Sedinger said investigators will meet with him today, and he will update the EAN as soon as possible.
