The remains of a woman who fell into a sinkhole were recovered Friday, four days after she went missing while searching for her cat, a state police spokesperson said.
Trooper Steve Limani said the body of 64-year-old Elizabeth Pollard was sent to the Westmoreland County Coroner’s Office for an autopsy after rescuers used machinery to bring her to the surface.
Limani told reporters Pollard was found at about 11 a.m. approximately 30 feet (9 meters) underground, some 12 feet (4 meters) from the opening of the sinkhole. Limani said Pollard apparently fell onto a cone-shaped pile of debris created by the crumbling mine, then rolled or otherwise moved toward the southwest to where her body was recovered.
The autopsy may help determine whether Pollard was killed by the fall, Limani said.
The announcement came in the fourth day of the search for Pollard, who had last been seen Monday evening, looking for the cat near a restaurant half a mile (0.8 kilometers) from her home in the village of Marguerite.
Axel Hayes, Pollard’s son, said a state trooper told him and other family members that her body had been found.
“I was hoping for the best, I really was,” Hayes said in a phone interview. “I was hoping she was still alive, maybe in a coma or something. I wasn’t expecting all of this.”
Mike O’Barto, who chairs the Unity Township Board of Supervisors, said the tragedy was deeply felt among his friends and neighbors.
“Unity Township is a tight-knit community. We are made of several coal mining towns. And of course, Marguerite’s one of them,” O’Barto said. “And when people suffer, we all suffer. The people of Unity Township are sad today.”
Pollard’s family reported her missing around 1 a.m. Tuesday as the temperature in the area dropped below freezing.
The search focused on a sinkhole that began as a manhole-sized gap and may have only recently opened above where coal was mined until about 70 years ago. Hunters and restaurant workers who were in the area in the hours before Pollard’s disappearance told police they hadn’t noticed the sinkhole.
Police said they found Pollard’s car parked about 20 feet (6 meters) from the sinkhole with her 5-year-old granddaughter inside. The cat, Pepper, has not reappeared, Hayes said.
The effort to find Pollard — which a fire official said lasted about 80 hours — included lowering a pole camera with a sensitive listening device into the hole, although it detected nothing. Crews removed a massive amount of soil and rock to try to reach the area where they believed she fell into the chasm about 30 feet (9 meters) deep.
Pollard grew up in Jeanette, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) from Unity Township, where she lived for much of her adult life. She previously worked at Walmart and was married for more than 40 years.
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Freelancer Matt Freed contributed from Unity Township.
Mark Scolforo, The Associated Press