The Case Of Tamla Horsford: Woman Dies In Friend's Backyard In Georgia

Tamla Horsford, 40, attended an overnight party in Forsyth County, Georgia in November 4, 2018. She died under mysterious circumstances after partygoers found her lying facedown and called 911 the next day.

Forsyth County in Georgia is about 30 minutes north of the Atlanta suburbs, but it has been deemed further back in time when you consider its history.

One of the more recent tragedies in Forsyth has to do with Tamla Horsford, a 40-year-old mother of five children.

Horsford reportedly attended a “football moms” party at a friend’s home in Cumming, Georgia, but she never made it home.

Instead, a frantic 911 call captured women and men reporting an emergency in the home’s backyard a little after 8 a.m. the next morning. Her body was discovered the next morning by law enforcement.

“It was a party. They were drinking,” the Forsyth Sheriff’s Office told reporters at the time. She was drinking. Most of the partygoers had gone to bed at that time, and she was on the deck alone.”

The autopsy went along with this narrative, which pointed to death “by an accidental fall from a residential deck.”

The death certificate went on to state that Horsford had “acute ethanol intoxication” as a contributing factor, meaning that she was drunk.

But despite the sheriff’s office and coroner’s account,, the details of the case have never been fully disclosed.

Adding to the already significant suspicion surrounding the case, Forsyth court employee Jose Barrera was fired after it was learned that he illegally accessed documents related to Horsford’s death.

Compounding the case, it was learned at the time that Barrera was dating the woman who owned the home where Horsford died.

Because of the mounting attention and skepticism around the case, the law firm Banks, Stubbs, and McFarland LLP, hired by the homeowner at the time, issued a statement condemning death threats purportedly made against the people who were at the party.

“The death threats need to stop,” the letter says. “The tragic accident is exactly that, an accident.”

While the coroner’s report said that Horsford’s body had evidence of “blunt force trauma,” many people speculating on the case said that those injuries were inconsistent with someone who fell accidentally.

On the 911 call, one of the men who report the death is heard saying she has “a cut on her wrist” and offers whether it was “self-inflicted.”

Horsford’s best friend, Michelle Graves, told TV station WSB-TV “I do believe that her life was taken from her. Yes.”

Graves said that a medical examiner hired by the family found extensive injuries all over her body. “It’s impossible to get the injuries that she had from one fall.”

More recently in early June 2020, the attorney hired by the family says in a letter obtained by WSB-TV that “The review reflects that a homicide is a strong possibility.”

The letter goes on to say: “A remarkable fact is that there were no photographs taken during the autopsy of Tamla’s body.”

Here’s the letter, as divulged by WSB’s Mike Petchenick on Twitter.

Until that time, questions remain about the case, which was officially closed by Forsyth officials in early 2019.