The remains of a Virginia mom missing since June 2023 were found last week, and her husband has been charged with her murder.

The Amherst County Sheriff’s Office said it found human remains on Elsie Wiggington’s property while executing a second search warrant there on August 14. At that time, Wiggington’s husband, Frederick Wiggington Jr., was arrested on a charge of concealing a dead body an ordered held without bond.

That charge was upgraded to first degree murder and use of a firearm while committing a felony on Tuesday, after the medical examiner’s office positively identified the remains as the 45-year-old missing woman.

Sheriff L.J. Ayers III said the remains were not found in the house on the property, WSET reported.

Deputies searched the property for the first time last month, and Ayers said at that time he didn’t believe Elsie Wiggington was still alive.

Ayers did not say why deputies had waited more than a year to search the property.

As CrimeOnline previously reported, Wiggington’s family made several calls reporting her missing since June 2023, but Amherst County officials initially insisted that she had left voluntarily. Family members said she had expressed fears for her life before she vanished, and arranged to meet a friend in Maryland, but never arrived.

Wiggington worked as director of nursing at a rehabilitation center, a job she enjoyed, according to family members, who said she would never have left without telling her children and grandchildren where she was going.

The sheriff, meanwhile, said in a statement announcing the identification of the body and arrest of Frederick Wiggington that his department “immediately” launched an investigation “as soon as our department was made a ware of Mrs. Wiggington being reported missing last year.”

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[Featured image: Elsie Wiggington/The Aware Foundation and Frederick Wiggington Jr/Amherst County Sheriff’s Office]