Benjamin Stanford Body Found

Benjamin Stanford, a seventeen-year old teenager had been reported missing since November 5 2007 from the town of Anniston, Alabama. His grandfather, Jim Preuitt is a state senator from Talladega. On November 13, 2007 it was reported in Fox News Radio that a body found on Tuesday afternoon in Villa Rica, Georgia was confirmed by Senator Preuitt to be his grandson, Bens. The remains were taken to the GBIs crime lab in South DeKalb County where an autopsy was scheduled for Wednesday morning.

Benjamin Stanford was last seen on the morning of November 5, 2007 in Anniston, Alabama. He was apparently clad in rust colored Carhatti jeans, a purple shirt, a long sleeved and dark grey fleece as well as a whit cap. Alabama police authorities were eventually joined in the search for the missing boy by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as well as by the international search-and-rescue team Texas Equusearch.

The multi-agency investigation team looking for Benjamin Stanford was headed by Steve Giddens who is the District Attorney of the Talladega County. Giddens revealed that someone used Stanfords credit card to purchase gas at the Texaco petrol station on Alabama 77 North, near the entrance to I-20. This was at about nine in the morning of November 5, 2007. Since then there has been no activity on the card.

The vehicle used by Benjamin Stanford was discovered in the later part of the same day, November 5. In Georgia, the Carroll County Sheriffs Department said that Stanfords 2007 Jeep Cherokee was found abandoned in the emergency lane of the Interstate-20 East. Its doors were found unlocked and the passenger side door was left open. No keys were found in the vehicle.

On the afternoon of Tuesday, November 13, a body was discovered with clothing matching that of Benjamin Stanford. The body was discovered at around two in the afternoon behind a Home Depot in Villa Rica, Georgia. The spot is around 1000 feet from the place where Bens missing vehicle had been discovered. It is reported that the place where the body was found is screened by a thick hedge which makes it difficult for someone to see it from the air or the main road. Investigators are still not saying anything about how the boy may have died.

The missing alert for Benjamin Stanford at missingkids.com gave his age as seventeen and date of birth as December 21, 1989. The notice puts down his race as white, the color of his hair as brown and that of his eyes as blue. His height is given as five feet ten inches and his weight as 64 kg. He was a senior in Donoho School in Aniston and had been missing from Lincoln in the American state of Alabama. Foxnews