5 Years After Georgia Wife Is Killed and Her Home Is Set on Fire, Husband Is Charged
Years after Edith Carole Sheffield was found dead in 2013, her husband has been arrested in her death, PEOPLE confirms.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) announced in a news release on Saturday that Timothy Larue Sheffield was arrested on Friday. He was charged with murder, aggravated assault, arson, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime and was taken to Coffee County Jail.
The suspect’s lawyer did not immediately return PEOPLE’s request for comment. At the time, the attorney denied that Timothy was involved in the death.
On January 18, 2013, deputies and fire officials responded to a house fire in Broxton, Georgia. Edith’s body was found in the house after the fire was put out.
Authorities determined that the fire was the result of arson, according to the Journal-Constitution. State Farm declined to pay Timothy for the damages because the fire seemed purposeful. After a lawsuit, State Farm was ordered to pay Timothy $270,000 in 2016.
According to a previous post on the GBI’s website, “Autopsy results revealed the death was caused by gunshot, not a result of the fire.”
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Edith, whose body was identified through dental records, was 49 at the time of her death. Though the medical examiner declared her death a homicide, questions have abounded for years as the investigation appeared stymied.
“Are we close to solving the case?” GBI special agent Mark Pro commented to the Journal-Constitution in 2017. “I’d say we’re probably as close as we were when it occurred.”
Pro told the newspaper at the time that police had not ruled out Timothy as a suspect. “He was one of the last people to see her alive. He lived at the residence, and he was near the residence at the time,” he said. “So we can’t really exclude him.”
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According to the Journal-Constitution, Timothy told police that, on the night of the homicide, Edith called him to say that she was leaving work late. Timothy said that he went to a mobile home he owned and learned through a call from a neighbor that his house was on fire.
