While the search continues for a missing Atlanta woman, the local man that police had initially linked to the case as a “person of interest” seems to be cleared from any connection to her disappearance.
According to 11Alive TV, police have been talking to St. Louis native Robert Kirk but have not indicated that they suspect him in her disappearance.
Kirk has since spoken to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution regarding being linked to the case.
“It sent an uncomfortable tingle through me,” Kirk told the newspaper. He told Atlanta police Stacey English kicked him out of her condo the night she apparently vanished.
“I don’t know what’s going on. All I know is, I’ve been speaking with [authorities] for a week,” Kirk told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a phone interview. He declined to say anything more, referring questions to his attorney Scott Rosenblum.
Rosenblum said it was “unfortunate” that his client has been singled out by police.
“When someone is named a person of interest, it makes people think something nefarious happened,” Rosenblum told the AJC. Kirk has been cooperative with police from the beginning, the lawyer said.
Meanwhile, the search for English, 36, intensified Friday afternoon as mounted police and rescue K-9s were dispatched to the area around Aaron’s Amphitheatre at Lakewood, where the missing woman’s car was found 10 days ago with its engine running.
Atlanta Police Maj. Keith Meadows, commander of the department’s major crimes unit, told the newspaper mistakes were made in the days immediately following English’s disappearance, which was reported to authorities on Dec. 27.
Investigators did not connect the abandoned 2006 Volvo S60 to English, its owner, until Wednesday.
“That information certainly would’ve been helpful” before Jan. 4, Meadows said.
There is still no evidence to suggest the SunTrust Bank instructional designer met with foul play, Meadows said.
But information has surfaced regarding English’s alleged state of mind the evening she disappeared.
According to the incident report released Friday, English told a friend she felt as if someone was trying to hurt her, citing Biblical passages and “discussing the end of the world.” That friend, Michelle Strothers, considered English’s behavior that day out of character, the report states.
Kirk told detectives a similar story, saying English began “acting peculiar” the night of Dec. 26, asking her friend if he was Satan. She asked Kirk to leave and he did, hailing a cab outside the Lenox Road condo, according to the report.
English was taking a medication for an undisclosed condition and had attempted suicide in November 2008, Cindy Jamison told investigators.
Information from AJC.com and 11 Alive TV contributed to this report.