Alabama man arrested decades after reporting wife missing

More than twenty years after an Alabama woman was found dead, her husband has been arrested for murder, the Dothan Police Department said in a statement on Monday. 

Sharon Mills was 49 when she was reported missing by her husband, Dwight Mills, on Dec. 30, 2001. Her body was recovered a month later, just over the Florida state line in Holmes County, the Dothan Police Department said. 

The investigation stalled after police said they exhausted all their leads.

"This is a day we've been praying for for 22 years," the victim's daughter, Angel Faulk, said at a news conference after the arrest. 

In 2023, Faulk said she came into some information that "really hurt her heart," and she contacted the nonprofit Wiregrass Angel House, which works with families affected by violent crime. Together they started reaching out to police. 

Investigators said that after they gathered new information and evidence and followed up on old leads, they were able to obtain a warrant to arrest Dwight Mills, 69, on charges of murder and abuse of a corpse.

Faulk said her parents divorced when Faulk was in her 20s and her mother had a hard time coping with the loss. She was getting better and then worse but was still vulnerable, and then "she met Dwight, and we all know what happened," said Faulk.

Dothan police said in a statement that no unsolved murder case is ever "closed" and investigators are actively working on other cold cases.  "We will do everything we can to bring closure to families and perpetrators to justice," the statement said. 

Faulk said she was glad she never gave up pushing for answers about her mother's death. She and her mother were close, she said. "My mom was my best friend. She had me at 17 and we were more like sisters," Faulk said during the news conference.

Mills is currently being held in custody on a $1,510,000 bond, police said. 

In:
• Alabama
• Cold Case
• Murder

Cara Tabachnick

Cara Tabachnick is a news editor and journalist at CBSNews.com. Cara began her career on the crime beat at Newsday. She has written for Marie Claire, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. She reports on justice and human rights issues. Contact her at cara.tabachnick@cbsinteractive.com