They Showed Up to Work on the Bridge. They Made a Grim Find

The bodies of a teen about to graduate from high school and her older sister were found under a Georgia bridge this week, and police say it's now a homicide investigation. CNN identifies the women as 19-year-old Vanita Richardson and 31-year-old Truvenia Campbell. The news site says the women were half sisters, though a family friend tells WXIA they were stepsisters. Georgia Bureau of Investigation official Brian Johnston says the women appeared to have been dropped over the Etowah Bridge in Rome, per the Rome News-Tribune. He says their bodies were discovered by Georgia Department of Transportation workers around 11am Wednesday when they showed up to do routine maintenance work on the bridge.

Initial scanner traffic reports indicated the women had bags over their heads and that there were shotgun shells near their bodies, though those reports remain unconfirmed. Investigators are now on the lookout for the vehicle the women had been driving: a gold 1997 Toyota Corolla, which wasn't at the scene where their bodies were found, per the GBI. "We are deeply saddened and heartbroken by the news of the death of one of our students, Vanita Richardson who was scheduled to graduate next Saturday," Floyd County Schools tweeted on Thursday. "Vanita will be remembered for being a fun-loving, humble, and motivated student who was making strong plans for her future." The GBI is asking anyone who may have seen anything suspicious in that area on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning to call 1-800-597-8477. (More Georgia stories.)