BEAUMONT, Texas — Cordy Simmons' body was found tied up and set on fire just days before her 50th birthday.
Her sister Diann Green has hope that investigators will get the information they need to solve this cold case.
On October 26, 2016 she got the news that would completely change her life. A passerby was preparing to turn on Old Sour Lake road when they saw what they thought was a mannequin that had been set on fire.
After Jefferson County deputies used fire extinguishers to put out the blaze, they realized it was something worse. It was a human body.
“A lot of times I cry myself to sleep, and it still hurts. It hurts even more because we don’t know who did it or why,” Green said.
It’s a murder Jefferson County Sheriff's Office investigators are still piecing together nealry two-and-a-half years later.
“It’s just amazing how she could be that person and something like this could happen to her,” Green said.
Captain Jeff Chadney started working at the sheriff’s office after Simmons was murdered, but this case has become a primary focus for him.
He’s determined to solve it.
"This was somebody's mother, somebody's sister, somebody's daughter. The answers we can't give to the family for that final closure, and they desperately need that closure, to go on with their lives," Chadney said.
Autopsy results revealed Simmons died before her body was set on fire. Detectives say she was choked to death, and they believe there was more that one person involved.
"She was probably killed somewhere else and the body was dumped there and set a blaze to destroy evidence," Chadney said.
Simmons was last seen the night before in Beaumont with her brother. Green, who was working at the time, wishes there was more she could’ve done to help.
“I used to know everything she did, everywhere she went and who she was with and who she was hanging with, but I started working and she started drifting away and I just don’t know,” Green said.
Today a memorial cross is at the site on Old Sour Lake road as a reminder of what happened to Simmons that day.
Green says she was a mother and a grandmother.
Green says to this day she still hasn’t been to the area where her sister’s body was found, and she says she has no plans on going until after the person responsible is put behind bars.
All Green says she wants is for investigators to find the people responsible for killing her best friend.
“That’s the day I live to see. I’m waiting and trusting in God because I believe they are going to find them, and I say 'them' because she was a fighter,” Green said.