Body Of Missing Atlanta Woman Found Burning On The Side Of The Road

The body of an Atlanta mother who was abducted on June 17 was found burning on the side of the road. Police are still searching for her killer. 

According to details in an incident report from the Atlanta Police Department obtained by PEOPLE, Brittany Wicklein, 31, was walking home from a store around one in the morning with a friend when an unknown black car stopped in front of them. Her friend told police that a man inside the car was screaming for Wicklein “to get in.”

The car sped off once she got in the car. Wicklein’s friend called her phone, and the abductor demanded $50,000 “for Wicklein causing his mother’s house to be shot up.” Before hanging up the phone, the man increased the amount to $100,000.

The report says that later that same evening, a friend called 911, and police searched for the missing woman. At some point, the man who demanded the ransom also called a family member of Wicklein’s and demanded $100,000, threatening “its (sic) your last time talking to her.”

“Approximately 12 hours after police were contacted and approximately 27 hours after she was said to have entered the black vehicle, Ms. Wicklein’s body was found in the City of South Fulton,” police said in a summary of the investigation.

Firefighters were called to the side of Jones Road near Ga. 42 in South Fulton for a report of a grass fire. When they extinguished the fire, they found a woman’s body. The Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed that the woman was Wicklein.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that investigators have not said if Wicklein was involved in a shooting that damaged a house. She was wanted on three counts of aggravated battery in Illinois from a June 2020 incident. 

Now Wicklein’s family, including her two children, are mourning her loss. She had recently moved with her kids from Indiana to Atlanta and lived with her aunt, Melba Scott. 

Scott told 11 Alive, “I wish I could turn back the clocks because I wish I could protect her.” She never imagined that when Wicklein left to go to the store, it would be the last time she saw her. 

A GoFundMe was created to help with funeral costs and to support Wicklein’s kids. At the time of print, it has exceeded its $10,000 goal.