Lisa Theris, a 25-year-old woman who went missing in the Alabama woods, was found alive on Saturday, August 12, after being missing for a month.
Theris said she survived by eating berries and wild mushrooms during her time wandering the dense forest in Midland, Alabama. Furthermore, Theris was without shoes or shelter for the entirety of the time. When she was found naked after being spotted by a driver on Route 82, she had lost 50 pounds, was without shoes, a phone, or a purse, and was covered in scratches and bug bites.
“She had been out lost in the woods,” Sheriff Raymond Rodgers said. “She said she was drinking water out of a brook and eating berries and mushrooms.”
In total, Theris spent 25 days stumbling in circles around the forest despite never being more than a mile from the nearest road.
Now, according to Daily Mail, investigators believe that the former Hooters waitress may have been “disorientated and suffering from hallucinations brought on by taking methamphetamine” while in the woods.
The two men she allegedly took drugs with, meanwhile, were so sure the 25-year-old was dead they started accusing one another of killing her. One inexplicably told investigators that the other had shot Theris in the head and thrown her body in a creek, leading authorities on a futile two-day search involving cadaver dogs and divers.
Her extraordinary claims have split opinion among locals and law enforcement, some of whom refuse to accept her ‘miraculous’ survival is what it seems. In the 25 days she was missing there were no confirmed sightings of Theris.The Troy Police Department even received a tip-off that she was shopping in Walmart but when they checked the store’s CCTV they could not spot her on any of the footage.
Theris, who suffers from bipolar disorder and is legally blind due to a chronic eye condition, was reported missing by her father Bill on July 23, five days after he last heard from her.
Despite this, Sgt. Chad Faulkner, who led the investigation for the Bullock County Sheriff’s Office, said he has no evidence that leads him to believe that Theris is lying.
Furthermore, Faulkner considers it a “miracle” that Theris survived, saying that in his 15 years doing his job, he’s never seen anything like it.
