UPDATE: Missing Emmet County Woman Found Dead

“Ann, in fact, was a champion. She would champion a cause.”

A champion in the community, gone.

She did not return from a late afternoon walk.

This morning, deputies found the body of Anabelle Smith.

Anabelle’s body was found by Lears and Howard Roads near Petoskey.

She was last seen around 6 p.m. yesterday not far away.

9&10’s Cody Boyer has more details from those closest to Anabelle along with her assisted living facility.

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“It leaves…it leaves a vacancy,” says Mary-Lou Tanton. “It leaves a big hole but we have a lot of good memories.”

Mary-Lou Tanton remembers Anabelle as a close friend always willing to help her community.

Now she’s gone, leaving a legacy behind.

“She really was a champion,” Tanton says. “She was the first woman to chair at the county board of commissioners and she also was very active in the Department of Public Works and the recycling program, in particular.”

Anabelle served as a county commissioner for more than ten years.

She also won several community awards.

Mary-Lou says her love for nature and gardening stand as a testament.

“Ann and I picked raspberries together in the garden,” Tanton says. “Sometimes we froze raspberries together. She cared a lot about people, as well as the world around her.”

The care provider at the Independence Village, CorsoCare, says Anabelle suffered from Alzheimer’s and dementia.

When she disappeared, they called police.

It was too late.

“We’re deeply saddened, obviously by the loss of Anabelle, and we recognize that she was a valued member of the Petoskey community as well as a valued member of the Independent Village community,” says Lori Apple, president of CorsoCare.

The CorsoCare president says the village tries to make residents like Anabelle feel like they are home.

“They are 100-percent independent so they make their own decisions as to when they come and go.”

Mary-Lou says Anabelle will always be remembered for what she accomplished in the community.

“She really was a champion,” Tanton says. “We could look around us here in Emmet County and see many of the things that she worked on, carried through and will be there, even though Ann won’t be with us any longer.”

For more information about Anabelle’s accomplishments, visit the Emmet County website.

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Northern Michigan’s News Leader is following developing news out of Emmet County Monday afternoon.

Deputies there found an 82 year-old woman dead.

It happened just before 9 a.m.

They found Anabelle Smith’s body near the intersection of Lears and Howard Roads.

Cody Boyer has been in Emmet County all morning talking to the sheriff’s department.

Deputies from this department responded immediately when they got the call that Anabelle Smith had walked away from her home and was missing.

By the time they found her this morning — it was too late.

The sheriff says an employee called after Anabelle left on her own.

Deputies called in air support for help in searching the area, but the area was heavily wooded and hard to search from above.

When search and rescue teams started searching on the ground Monday morning, they found her.

“She had some medical issues,” said Sheriff Pete Wallin. “She had Alzheimer’s, and so we get very concerned with these people because sometimes they don’t know where they are going or they don’t know how to return home, so that was why we initiated the search as quick as we did because we thought it was important to find her as quickly as we could.”

The Emmet County sheriff says Anabelle was found around 8:40 a.m. in the yard of a home only a short distance away from the Independence Village’s Assisted Living Facility.

The sheriff also says Anabelle was a county commissioner for years.

They are still investigating the cause of her death.

Keep following Northern Michigan’s News Leader as we work to bring you more details about what happened and the woman that was lost.