Body Found Of Missing Canton Woman Last Seen Swimming: Police

CANTON, GA -- The body has been found of a 34-year-old woman from Canton who had been missing since Monday, April 15 after she went into a creek off Sandy Flats Road.

The White County News reported that the woman has been identified as Belinda Butterfield, said White County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Bob Ingram. Around 4:30 a.m. on Monday, Butterfield and her mother were at the creek when her mother said her daughter voluntarily went into the water, the White County News reported.

WSB-TV reported that authorities in White County found a body found in a Lumpkin County river on Wednesday and confirmed it was Butterfield.

Around 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, law enforcement responded to a report of a body found in the Chestatee River in Lumpkin County, two days after the search for a missing woman began in White County, the White County News reported. Authorities confirmed to the paper that the clothing on the victim match the description of Butterfield.

The body was "found by a local resident who frequently paddles the river. He immediately reached out to us," Lumpkin County Sheriff Stacy Jarrard told the White County News.

The AJC reported that man had seen the reports about Butterfield missing, so he went out on his canoe Wednesday. He found the body partially submerged in the Chestatee and caught on a tree root in the river near the 800 block of Lewis Grindell Road, Roach said to the AJC. He contacted authorities, who recovered the body.

Sheriff's Office Capt. Rick Kelley told the paper her body will be sent to the Georgia Bureau of Investigations crime lab for an autopsy.

The AJC reported Butterfield’s mother was watching her swim and asked her multiple times if she was doing fine, according to Lumpkin sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Alan Roach. She assured her mother she was all right, he told the AJC.

“But as she was floating — apparently not realizing the danger she was in — her mother lost sight of her,” Roach said to the AJC.

Butterfield’s mother searched the water, but could not find her, so she called the White County sheriff’s office about 6 a.m. Monday.

Based on an interview with the mother, authorities do not suspect foul play, the newspaper reported.

Agencies involved in the search include the WCSO, White County Fire Department, DNR, Lumpkin County Sheriff's Office and Lumpkin County Fire and Rescue, Kelley told the White County News.