Body of missing Selma dance teacher found

Published 6:42 pm Friday, June 10, 2016

The body of a missing former Selma dance school owner and instructor has been found.

Laura Faile Hutchins, 61, and her husband, 59-year-old Raymond Hutchins, had been missing since a Sunday boating trip off the Georgia coast.

On Tuesday, Raymond’s body was recovered while the search continued for Laura, who was found about noon Friday in Dover Creek near the Satilla River. She was not wearing a life vest.

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Hutchins owned Laura’s School of Dance on Citizens Parkway in the 1980s and 1990s and taught dance to hundreds of Selma children.

Sgt. Mark Carson of the Georgia National Resource Law Enforcement Division said, like Laura’s husband, the cause of death is unknown, but investigators believe both drowned.

“We have turned both of them over to the coroner’s office,” Carson said. “There will be an autopsy done on both of them.”

Carson said investigators will continue to work the case as a boating accident.

“[Investigators] will determine the cause and all of that,” Carson said. “It will take them a few months to figure that all out.”

According to authorities, the couple called their son to inform him their pontoon boat was stuck on a sandbar at St. Andrew’s Sound on Sunday and would return home later than originally planned.

The son reported the couple missing the next morning when they failed to return home or make any other contact.

Later on Monday, the pontoon boat was found on the Satilla River. No damage was found on the boat.

Carson said the boat engine was not running, but the family’s dog was still onboard.