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Body Likely That Of Lost 75-Year-Old

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By KEITH MORELLI

kmorelli@tampatrib.com

Published: March 14, 2009

Updated: 03/14/2009 12:26 am

RUSKIN - A British tourist who disappeared two days ago while visiting relatives in Ruskin was found dead along Interstate 75 on Friday morning, Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies said.
Deputies said they are certain the body is that of Enid Grace Hendricks, 75. The clothes on the body matched those that relatives said Hendricks had on when she went missing.

"We're waiting for the medical examiner to make a final confirmation on the identity, but it appears to be the lady we have been looking for," sheriff's Maj. John Marsicano said at a news conference.
Deputies say Hendricks walked out of the door of her relatives' home at 2500 Yukon Cliff Drive about 5 a.m. on Wednesday. Five hours later, and about three miles northeast, deputies say someone spotted her at the Sunpoint Shopping Center on College Avenue, just west of Interstate 75.

A short time later, there was another valid sighting in a tomato field just north of the shopping center along 30th Street Southeast, deputies say.

That was on Wednesday. There were no valid sightings of Hendricks on Thursday.

Lisa Janes is a clerk at the Goodwill store on College Avenue just west of Interstate 75, between where Hendricks was found and the home from which she was staying. Janes said she thinks she waited on Hendricks sometime between 2 and 3 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, she said, although sheriff's officials are not counting that encounter among the valid sightings.

"She came up and didn't say much," said Janes, who said the woman matched Hendricks' description. "She said, 'I cut my foot really bad.'"
Janes said the woman tried to hold her foot up and Janes leaned over to look. "She had slippers on and that made sense because of the cut," she said.

The woman paid for a pair of nylon footies and then leaned over on the counter, Janes said. "She said she didn't feel so good; that she was really tired."

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, said the 47-year-old clerk, who has worked at the Goodwill store for six months.

As she waited on other customers, the woman left.

It wasn't until later in the day when the missing person's alert came out about a woman in a bathrobe and slippers that Janes realized her customer might have been that woman, she said.

"There was no red flag that told me anything was seriously wrong with her," she said.

The body was spotted by a sheriff's helicopter crew near mile marker 242 along southbound I-75, four to five miles from where Hendricks was staying and about a half-mile from a tomato field where she was thought to have last been seen alive.

Hendricks, who was visiting Florida for the first time and was described as being in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, was the subject of a regionwide search.

She was reported missing about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday. Robert Hendricks told investigators he heard a door open about 5:30 a.m. and discovered his wife was gone when he got up about 9 a.m.

The couple had arrived Tuesday night from England.
Deputies went door-to-door and divers searched a pond for clues in the disappearance. The search extended north of the Ruskin area after Hendricks reportedly was spotted Wednesday in the tomato field and around Sunpoint Plaza.

The family declined to comment Friday.

News Channel 8 reporter Natalie Shepherd contributed to this report.

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