Almost three years after 83-year-old Virginia Ratliff was reported missing, her car and a body have been found in a wooded area of Jefferson County, Brookhaven Police Chief Pap Henderson said.

The discovery was made Friday morning by a man who bought land and was walking the property line. “We have identified it as the car we were looking for,” Henderson said.

Police were working to identify the body.

Henderson said state crime lab officers were at the scene, which is off Mississippi Highway 33.

Ratliff left Brookhaven on Feb. 28, 2008, to visit her husband at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Jackson where he was being treated. A search failed to turn up Ratliff or her car.

Charles Ratliff, 87, died in June 2010.