Missing Alabama Woman Found Dead in a Trash Bag Along the Interstate
By J. Thomas Wade
Blue RAM Media/Gulf Coast News
May 20, 2026
GREENE COUNTY, Ala. A twenty-three-year-old Alabama woman missing since May 8th, 2026, has been found deceased along Interstate 20/59.
The Alabama woman found dead days after she was reported missing was discovered in a large black trash bag on the side of highway.
According to police investigators, Karen Deann Hollis, 23, vanished from Northport although police have not disclosed if she left of her own free will or y other means, but police said that she was last seen at about midnight near 43rd Avenue in Northport.
At the time of her disappearance, Northport police said Hollis was believed to be living with a condition that could impair her judgment.
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency issued a missing person alert in connection with her disappearance.
Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit Capt. Jack Kennedy said the initial investigation led detectives to believe that foul play may have been involved.
TVCU and Northport police have been working together on the case, and police have made an arrest and identified the person as Randall Lendell Dejourney, 44, but he has only been charged with abuse of a corpse based on a neighbor’s camera footage which shows Dejourney walking with Hollis and later leaving the area of her apartment.
From the footage, a deposition states, Dejourney was seen carrying a big tote with a large black bag inside.
Hollis’ phone which was recovered from I-20/59 westbound, at exit 62, after they received a crash notification from the Life360 app.
A search warrant was obtained for Dejourney’s cell tower data.
That data put him at Hollis’ apartment as well as moving simultaneously with her cellphone Life360 pings, which includes the area where investigators recovered her cellphone.
The data also indicates Dejourney’s cellphone traveled westbound on I-20/59.
Her body was recovered on Saturday about 10 to 15 feet off I-20/59 eastbound in Greene County. Family and friends made the discovery based upon the location of her cellphone, police said.
“She was encased in a large black trash bag,” records state, similar to the one Dejourney was seen carrying away from Hollis’ apartment.
Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit Capt. Jack Kennedy has said Hollis’ remains have been sent to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for an autopsy to determine the cause and manner of her death.
The investigation is ongoing and more charges could be brought following the findings of that autopsy.
