SAN ANTONIO — A missing 63-year-old Bandera resident is dead, according to the woman's daughter.
On Tuesday, Norma Espinoza's body was discovered near her home. She disappeared on August 12.
Law enforcement did not respond to KENS 5's requests for more information. It's not yet clear whether sheriff's deputies suspect foul play.
Espinoza's daughter says the sheriff's office has not yet answered her questions about their investigation.
Espinoza is the third Bandera County resident since July to disappear and turn up dead weeks later.
A neighbor found 33-year-old Brittany McMahon on July 3. Her relatives had not seen her since June 19.
Deputies do not believe someone killed McMahon, but a medical examiner could not identify how she died.
On August 17, passersby discovered 56-year-old Sean Duffy's body off Red Bluff Ranch Road. His body was burned and deputies are investigating the case as a homicide.
Authorities have yet to locate 25-year-old Jordan Tompkins, who disappeared on April 22.
The Bandera County Sheriff's Office contends the cases are not connected.
"It is a little bit uncanny to me that, within a 50-mile radius, we've got four or five missing people within six months," said Dennis Fitzgerald, a retired private investigator who organized a search for Tompkins.
He's asked around the county about Duffy and McMahon as he searches for Tompkins. He has not yet reviewed Espinoza's disappearance.
Fitzgerald believes Tompkins, Duffy, and McMahon all knew each other.
"There is a relative connection between all of them," he said. "We're a small community, so it's not unusual... that they know each other."
But Fitzgerald says he won't yet rule out a connection between their cases.
"I've not yet found anything that disproves a correlation on at least a couple of these cases," he said.