The husband of murdered Georgia realtor Debbie Collier broke his silence Friday — nearly two weeks after her naked burnt body was found in a ravine about 60 miles from the couple’s home.
“She was a beautiful woman and I loved her,” Steve Collier, 67, told The Daily Mail from his Athens home.
“It has been a long two weeks and I’m very tired,” he reportedly said, while fighting back tears. “My wife was a wonderful person.”
The widower later spoke with The Post at his home and said investigators haven’t shared many details with him beyond what’s been made public.
“Police found my wife’s body in Habersham County, near Clarkesville, Georgia. They said it wasn’t suicide and it wasn’t a kidnapping,” he said. “They said it was murder. If they have any more information, they haven’t shared it with me yet.”
Police have not named any suspects or motives in the murder case, and were waiting for autopsy results to determine Collier’s cause of death.
Debbie, 59, was found dead near Tallulah Falls on Sept. 11, a day after leaving her home in a SUV that was rented because her vehicle was in the shop, police said.
Her daughter Amanda Bearden, 36, told police that her mom had Venmoed her $2,385 along with the message “They are not going to let me go, love you” on Sept. 10.
A neighbor told The Post she heard “a commotion” at the Collier residence on the evening of Sept. 9, and had frequently heard screaming coming from the home.
“Somebody comes up to visit on the weekends [and] in the evenings, and there’s loud screaming and fighting,” the neighbor said, saying the visitor was a younger woman.
Steven Collier told cops he last encountered his wife at 9 p.m. the night before her disappearance and didn’t see her leave the following morning because they sleep in separate beds due to his snoring.
Her rental vehicle — which was found near her body — was still in the driveway the next morning when he went to work, he said.
Bearden and her boyfriend, who both have a history of domestic arrests, said Thursday they had been interrogated by detectives who also confiscated their phones.
“The [police have] interrogated all of us. The people who are closest to [Collier] are kind of looked at as suspects right now,” Andrew Tyler Giegerich told The Post.
