The Delaware County Sheriff's Office said that they found the body of a missing pregnant woman on Wednesday.
The body of 23-year-old Deanna Ballman was found in a vehicle near Bevelheimer Road and state Route 605, in Westerville. She was nine months pregnant.
Family members filed a police report stating that Ballman disappeared after responding to a Craigslist ad. Law enforcement agencies combed a New Albany neighborhood looking for clues.
Police originally reported that the woman was from New Albany, she was later determined to live in Pataskala.
Information about the ad was not immediately available.
While investigators worked to determine the circumstances leading to Ballman’s death, her family worked to grasp the reality.
“It’s like I’m in a movie,” said grandmother Sigrid Ballman. “It’s not happening, it doesn’t seem real.”
She said her granddaughter planned to name her baby after her great grandmother, Mabel.
Now, instead of preparing for a new addition to the family, members must deal with the loss of the baby and Deanna.
“It's so hard to believe 'cause we just got her home from Colorado, and everything appeared to be all right,” Sigrid Ballman said.
Sigrid Ballman said that her granddaughter was in an abusive relationship - and was in the process of getting a divorce from her husband. She moved to central Ohio with two young children and one on the way.
“She needed to make money and she was there, trying to make it on her own, she was in the Army National Guard out of Newark,” Sigrid Ballman said. “She was coming home and going to go to college to be a dentist, she wanted to be a dentist in the worst way.”
A dream that is now gone, leaving Sigrid and other family members wait to find out what happened and how Deanna died.
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