A man already being held in Mobile County Metro Jail on a domestic violence charge has now been charged with murder after investigators say the woman he was accused of assaulting days earlier was found dead and severely burned in a Mobile backyard.
Mobile Police charged Timothy Buford, 35, with murder and abuse of a corpse after officers responded to a missing person call at a home on Bonneville Drive. Responding officers found the body of 57-year-old Tracy Giffin in the back yard of the residence, lying atop a trash pile and showing severe burns.
Investigators believe Giffin was killed several days before her body was discovered, and detectives worked through the intervening time to piece together what happened at the home. Her remains were sent to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for an autopsy to determine the exact cause and circumstances of her death.
As detectives worked the case, Buford quickly emerged as a suspect. He did not have to be tracked down, however, because he was already in custody at Mobile County Metro Jail. Officers had arrested him in the early morning hours days earlier after a domestic violence call in the parking lot of a Target store on Schillinger Road, where he was accused of assaulting a woman later identified as Amber Kuta, 37.
As the murder investigation progressed, police said Kuta was also developed as a suspect in Giffin’s death. She was arrested and charged with murder and abuse of a corpse as well, meaning both defendants now face identical charges in the case.
Mobile Police have not released a motive for the killing or detailed how investigators believe Buford and Kuta are connected to Giffin or to each other beyond the domestic violence incident that preceded the murder charges. The department has also not said how long Giffin’s body may have been in the backyard before the missing person report led officers to the home.
The case remains under investigation, and additional charges are possible as the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences completes its autopsy findings. Anyone with information related to the case is encouraged to contact Mobile Police.