Rita Maze, a missing and abducted Montana woman, was tragically found dead in the trunk of her auto near the Spokane, Washington, airport on Wednesday. The medical examiner says 47-year-old Rita Maze died from a single gunshot wound involving the chest and abdomen.
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Her body was found 523km away near Spokane airport on the Washington state border.
She was hit in the head and locked in her vehicle boot, but managed to use her mobile phone to call her husband and report the abduction.
Rita Maze, left, and her daughter in a family photo.
Trapped in the trunk of her vehicle on a terrifying trip from Montana to Washington, a kidnapped Rita Maze was able to make contact with her husband and daughter before she died.
“I told her that I loved her, and my dad told her that he loved her – and she said that she loved us”, Rochelle Maze told NBC affiliate KREM.
As investigators try to piece together how a Montana woman ended up dead in her auto near Spokane International Airport, they’re running into more questions than answers. Rita Maze said her mom was hysterical and hard to understand during the 10-minute conversation, which ended when the phone went dead or cell coverage was lost. “She was always swimming with us in the pool and throwing us around”.
Since Maze did not know her whereabouts, authorities from Montana and Washington state tracked her phone and alerted police departments nationwide.
Police said a “person of interest” had been identified in the investigation, and surveillance video was also being looked at.
Earlier on Tuesday evening, Maze spoke to family members and a Helena police officer by cellphone.
Rochelle Maze told Spokane’s KREM 2 News that her mother was loved and admired in Great Falls, where the family lives and she worked as a cook at an elementary school.
“We know where the body was located; we know where she started out”, he told the newspaper.
“She, one, had such a positive presence”, said Bill Salonen, former principal at Morningside.
“I’m getting married in nine months”, an emotional Rochelle Maze said.
Rita also had a son, Michael, a sergeant in the Air Force who is stationed in Germany. He is married and has two daughters.
Sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Mark Gregory said the case is being called a death investigation, rather than a homicide, because law enforcement officers do not know what exactly happened to Maze.
“My mom had no enemies”, she said. “There’s an outpouring in this community that you would not believe”, she said.
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New information on a big story we’ve been tracking since Wednesday morning.
