Elizabeth Pollard’s (right) remains were recovered from a sinkhole that formed over an old minefield (left) (Pictures: WPXI/CBS Pittsburgh)
The search for a grandmother who was believed to have fallen into a sinkhole while searching for her missing cat has come to a somber end after four days.
Elizabeth Pollard’s body was recovered from about 30 feet underground around 11am on Friday, according to Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Steve Limani.
A state trooper informed Pollard’s family.
‘I was hoping for the best, I really was,’ said her son, Axel Hayes.
Rescue workers searched for several days in a sinkhole for Elizabeth Pollard, who disappeared while looking for her cat, in Marguerite, Pennsylvania (Picture: AP)
‘I was hoping she was still alive, maybe in a coma or something. I wasn’t expecting all of this.’
Rescue crews used machinery to lift the 64-year-old’s remains from roughly 12 feet from the opening of the sinkhole.
Pollard is believed to have fallen into debris shaped like a cone and rolled in a southwest direction. The dirt was formed by an old minefield where coal was extracted until about 70 years ago.
Elizabeth Pollard had brought her five-year-old granddaughter with her to search for her missing cat (Picture: Facebook)
Her body has been sent to the Westmoreland County Coroner’s Office to perform an autopsy and determine her cause of death and if it was her fall, said Limani.
Pollard’s relatives reported her missing around 1am on Tuesday. She had gone out with her five-year-old granddaughter on Monday to look for her cat, Pepper, and left her car parked near a restaurant a half mile from her home in Marguerite.
The girl was found unharmed in the vehicle and told troopers that she was waiting for her grandmother.
A Pennsylvania State trooper looks over the sinkhole, where the remains of Elizabeth Pollard was found onFriday (Picture: AP)
Pollard had worked for Walmart and was married for over 40 years. She grew up in Jeannette and lived most of her life in the tight-knit community of Unity Township.
‘We are made of several coal mining towns. And of course, Marguerite’s one of them,’ said Unity Township Board of Supervisors chair Mike O’Barto.
‘And when people suffer, we all suffer. The people of Unity Township are sad today.’
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