A 27-year-old woman who was reported missing in Northwest Arkansas on Sunday morning was found dead after her vehicle struck a tree in Washington County, authorities said.
Anne Carroll of Fayetteville was driving a 2012 Ford Focus south on U.S. 71 near Winslow when the car left the road to the right and struck a tree, according to a preliminary Arkansas State Police report.
Carroll died at the scene, troopers said. The report didn't indicate what might have caused the car to leave the highway.
Though Carroll was living in Fayetteville, the woman’s family reported her missing to Bentonville police Sunday morning, Gene Page, spokesman for the department, said.
“Usually that’s the way it goes,” he said. “If you have someone that’s missing you want to file a report where you last think they were.”
According to Page, Carroll’s husband told police he thought she left Bentonville shortly after 4 a.m. Sunday.
Although the preliminary crash report states the wreck occurred at roughly 5 a.m., agency spokesman Bill Sadler wrote in an email that evidence suggested that the crash might have happened "days earlier."
Investigators are still working, however, to confirm the time of the wreck.
At least 153 people have died in crashes so far this year on Arkansas roads, preliminary figures show.