Mother of missing Heather Teague files federal lawsuit against law enforcement

OWENSBORO, Ky. (WEHT) — In Henderson, a high-profile missing person’s case has turned into a federal lawsuit. Heather Teague went missing in 1995 at Henderson’s Newburgh Beach and now her mother is claiming law enforcement’s negligence.

Sarah Teague has spent the past 28 years searching for answers in the disappearance of her daughter.

23-year-old Heather Teague went missing from Newburgh Beach in Henderson on August 26, 1995. She was never found.

Sarah Teague claims negligence in a federal lawsuit filed against Kentucky State Police Post 16 and the FBI.

“July the 27th of last year, God gave me these words ‘An undeniable truth is coming they can no longer deny. They will have no choice but to tell our family. Two days later, I sat down in Heather’s room with a computer and opened the state police files; There it was, and a mislabeled audio,” says Teague.

She says witness accounts describe a man with dark, bushy hair and a beard taking her daughter from the beach at gunpoint. Later, KSP started looking into a man named Marty Dill.

She says the recording was of Dill’s attorney saying Dill did not fit witnesses’ descriptions.

Dill took his own life when KSP went to question him.

“Marty Dill was bald. Marty was clean shaven when he was at Webster County Jail. This is July the 15th,” Teague says while pointing to a picture of Dill. “This shows you he was totally bald. He did not have the beer belly or anything. I presented evidence to Mr. Mckee, the prosecuting attorney in Henderson, and he contacted me right before Christmas of last year to say that this needs to go to the Department of Criminal Investigations,” says Teague.

She says it’s given her the hope she needed to walk up the steps of the federal building in Owensboro.

Friends and family traveled from as far as Ohio to support Teague.

“Today, I feel so…I guess recognized and honored that Heather’s family is not going to stop fighting for her,” says Teague.

If successful in the lawsuit, The mother is asking to be compensated for legal fees, the damages caused by negligence and a life size portrait of Heather Teague to be hung at KSP Post 16.

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