(cache) Remains of Missing 911 Operator Theresa Parker Found

(Sept. 23) -- Authorities in Georgia have found the remains of Theresa Parker, a 911 operator missing since 2007.

The remains were found in a remote wooded area in the northwest corner of the state near the Alabama border. Police searched the area after a farmer found a jawbone there Monday, CNN said.

Authorities in Georgia found the remains of Theresa Parker, a 911 operator who disappeared in 2007

GBI / Walker Co. Sheriff's Office / AP

A farmer found the jawbone of Theresa Parker, who had been missing since 2007, in a remote area of northwestern Georgia on Monday, authorities said.

Dental records identified the remains as belonging to Parker.

Sam Parker, Theresa's husband and a former police officer, was convicted of her murder last year, even though no body had been found. Witnesses said that he had talked about killing his wife and knowing about a remote place where he could hide a corpse, according to The Chattanooga Free Press.

Theresa Parker, who was 41, worked as an emergency dispatcher in Walker County. She was last seen leaving her sister's house on March 21, 2007. She had recently moved out of the house she shared with her husband, and was planning to retrieve some belongings from there that night, The Chattanoogan said.

"It's been a long three and a half years," Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson said, according to CNN, adding that the woman's family is ''glad to finally be able to bring her home."

Hundreds of people turned out across four Georgia counties to hunt for Theresa Parker following her disappearance in a case that made headlines across the country. "We never let up looking for her," Wilson said.

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Sam Parker's trial involved colorful and sometimes gruesome testimony against him. One witness said that he had talked about how he shot his wife in the head. Others said that Parker told them he believed his wife might be in Mexico with a man named Elvis, The Chattanooga Free Press reported.

"[Parker] called [his badge] his get-out-of-jail-free card" Arica Patterson, Theresa's niece, testified.

The area where the remains were found is about 14 miles from where Sam Parker grew up. Most of the land is used for either farming or hunting, local TV station News Channel 9 reported.

"There's nothing but woods, no houses, there's no power on the road as far as I know," James Callahan, who lives nearby, told the station. "It's very hidden."

So far, police have not established a cause of death, and there was no indication that the body had ever been buried.