Timothy Cunningham, a promising official who aided the CDC in responses to Ebola and Zika outbreaks, went missing in February in Georgia.
A Centers for Disease and Control employee, who mysteriously vanished two months ago, was found dead in an Atlanta river, police said Thursday.
Timothy Cunningham, a promising official who aided the CDC in responses to Ebola and Zika outbreaks, went missing in February after leaving work early at his office in Chamblee, Ga.
Cunningham told co-workers he felt sick and planned to finish working at home. But in the hours and days before his disappearance, Cunningham, 35, made a number of odd comments.
Atlanta police confirmed Thursday his body was found in the Chattahoochee River in the northwest area of the city. Authorities plan to hold a news conference Thursday afternoon with details.
No information was immediately released about how Cunningham died.
A day before he went missing, Cunningham allegedly told his neighbor “to erase his cellphone number from my cellphone,” the neighbor, Viviana Tory, told CBS.
The day of his disappearance, police say Cunningham called his sister, who said he sounded different that day, and his mother, who didn’t answer.
When his family did try to reconnect, they couldn’t get a hold of him and asked another family member to check on him at his house. The relative couldn’t find Cunningham and noticed his cellphone and car keys were still in the house.
His dog, Mr. Bojangles, was left unattended and his car sat parked in the garage.
“None of this makes sense,” his brother, Anterio Cunningham, told Atlanta’s Fox 5 . “He wouldn’t just evaporate like this and leave his dog alone and have our mother wondering and worrying like this. He wouldn’t.”
After his disappearance, a number of conspiracy theories have emerged, but Cunningham had no access to classified material, and the CDC does not believe that his employment would be the cause of any foul play.
Authorities had offered a $10,000 reward for information in the case.
