We're learning much more about a Johnson County cold case investigation into the 2001 disappearance of a woman who was possibly murdered by a suspected serial killer.
Johnson County Sheriff Mike Reece says that Frederick Phillip Hammer told police in Ashe County, North Carolina that he killed 29-year old Julie Lovett---the subject of a 2001 missing persons case.
Hammer told police he picked Lovett up from a Johnson County bar and took her to Ashe County where he murdered and disposed of her body.
Reece says Hammer confessed to much more to the Ashe County Sheriff.
"He has confessed to several murders, really I don’t know about the others but I think it's a total of 17 he has confessed to,” explains Reece. “I don't know if he wanted to get it off his conscious or what the deal exactly is, but he sat down with Sheriff Williams and decided to tell him about this along with some other murders over there."
Reece says hammer gave police an indication of where Lovett's remains could be located.
While investigators continue to search for more answers in this case and look for Lovett's body, her family says while this isn't the ending they were praying for, after nearly 11 years that it's all they can ask for.
“You do hope and pray that she is alive out there somewhere. It's always in the back of your mind,” says Lovett’s daughter Denise McMahan who was only 9 when her mom disappeared. “Everybody's going to wish that she'd come home and act like it never happened and it would have been nice to actually have her come home and it would have been nice to actually seen her.”
Denise always hoped her mom had just taken a vacation.
“I just figured that's what she had done, that she had gone somewhere and she would come back so I didn't think much into it until months went by, years went by and still nothing. I finally started putting two and two together that she wasn't going to come back.”
Now possibly knowing what happened to her mom, Denise holds on to memories of laughter.
“One time She got on top of the car and started doing the chicken dance,” laughs Denise. “That was funny.”
And Julie's mom Blenda says closure will be an answer to all her prayers.
“I was hoping they'd find her and she wouldn't be dead but if she was I know where she's at,” explains Blenda. “I wish I would have at least seen her and held her and told her I love her.”
Still, Julie's presence is missed everyday.
“She's missed my graduation, she's going to miss my wedding, and for my first kid, she's not going to be there. So it is hard not having her with you.”
Denise has an older sister Briana, and Denise says when they find her mom's body, they hope to give her a proper funeral.
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