CHATTAHOOCHEE HILLS, Ga. — The body of 34-year-old Tanisha Rivers was discovered under a bridge on Woodruff Road by Bear Creek in Chattahoochee Hills on Oct. 4.
Police are treating her death as suspicious and possibly a homicide as they await confirmation of the cause and manner of death from Fulton County.
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Rivers, a mother of two, was found dead in a location that sees little traffic, adding to the mystery surrounding her death.
“I’m currently battling Stage 4 triple negative metastatic breast cancer. And that’s hard for our family. So for us to have an untimely death at a time where like I’m in the fight of my life, I just feel like I need to fight for my niece, you know? She didn’t deserve to die like this,” her aunt, Leona Word, said.
River had been staying at an EconoLodge near Six Flags in Austell as late as Sept. 27, and her SUV was located near the Fulton Inn.
“We’re just waiting for Fulton County to confirm the cause of death and the manner of death, but through our investigation, we’re treating this as a suspicious death and homicide,” said Chief Kevin Digou of the Chattahoochee Hills Police.
Word described Rivers as a “very loving person, the type that would give you the shirt off her back, like very, very sweet.”
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Rivers had been trafficked for sex from the age of 13 and had been trying to turn her life around in recent years.
“Her line of work doesn’t devaluate what we’re going to do to try and solve this,” Digou said. “My detective has been working on this case since he got it day in and day out, weekends. We’re throwing everything we can at this to get this solved and bring justice to her and her family.”
“She definitely had in the last two and a half years, turned over a new leaf. So she had been attending church, and I don’t even know the name of the church to be able to tell those people, but they were looking for her. She was attending AA meetings, so I feel like that was also helping her, you know battle those demons that she had,” Word said.
Rivers had recently left a boyfriend in West Georgia who had been supportive of her efforts to turn over a new leaf.
Capt. Richard Stein and detective Lee Martin are investigating whether her past may have contributed to her untimely death.
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