Authorities said the bodies of two previously missing Montgomery County teenagers will undergo autopsies today, but investigators won’t know the exact cause of death for several weeks.
Police said the deaths of Rachel Smith, 16, of Potomac, and Rachel Crites, 18, of Gaithersburg, appeared as a double-suicide, but authorities won’t know how they died until a Fairfax County medical examiner completes the toxicology tests in three to six weeks, Loudoun County Sheriff’s spokesman Kraig Troxell said
Investigators said there was no evidence of foul play in the teens’ disappearance and they didn’t see any immediate signs of trauma.
Montgomery County detectives said they harbored concern for both girls’ mental health status, stemming in part from a diary entry by Crites that read: “Wherever I end up laying, whether buried or cremated, I want to stay with my true love, buried next to her. This is my choice. I’m sorry.”
Authorities found the girls in the front of a blue Subaru in a remote area in Loudoun County near the West Virginia border Friday, ending a nearly two-week search.
They went missing Jan. 20, when they did not return to their homes after telling their parents they were going to a movie in Georgetown.
In fact, it appeared from cell phone records that the girls were already near the West Virginia border in the Charleston area, Troxell told The Examiner.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
