WEWOKA — A little bit of mystery is beginning to swirl around a 40-year-old woman described as a storm victim by the state medical examiner.
The state agency lists Brandie Kay Perry as a victim of last week's deadly storms and flooding, claiming in a preliminary report that she accidentally drowned.
---
Yet an official with the Seminole County sheriff's office said he doesn't believe the woman died as a result of the storms that swept through Oklahoma a week ago.
Chief Deputy Chris Conn said Perry was found in a ditch about 20 feet from a travel trailer she had been living in. He said there was no water in the ditch and there didn't appear to be flood damage in the area.
“She had some kind of head injury or something like that,” Conn said during an interview with The Oklahoman on Wednesday. “Looked like she slipped and fell and hit her head ... we just don't believe she's a storm victim.”
---
Perry's mother, Bonnie Barker, doesn't think her daughter is a storm victim. The dead woman's sister, Debbie Villines, doesn't think so, either.
In fact, Barker fears something far more sinister may have happened to Perry, who she said battled drugs and abusive men for most of her adult life.
Just a month ago, Perry's ex-boyfriend “cut her throat and beat her up real bad,” Barker said.
Now, her daughter is dead. Her body found in a shallow ditch surrounded by clothes.
---
More than 15 years before her own death, Perry's sister disappeared as she rode her bicycle home.
Amber Barker, who was 10 when she vanished, has never been found. Her case garnered significant media attention in December 1997, and on through the years whenever a set of skeletal remains are discovered in the Oklahoma City area, but the case remains unsolved.
The little girl's bike was found undamaged at a park near her Oklahoma City home.
---
