‘So loving’: Family copes with loss while woman’s killer remains on the loose

CHARLOTTE — Deannia Hester is pushing for answers after her mother was found dead on Aug. 5 off Belmeade Drive a wooded area in west Charlotte.

Homicide investigators believe Diane Hester Lewis’s body had been there since July 24.

Channel 9′s Glenn Counts spoke with Deannia Hester about the devastating loss and her message for the killer.

Diane Lewis Hester was a woman of faith and a beloved grandmother.

“I’ll never be the same person again, so whoever took my mom’s life, they took my life as well,” Deannia Hester said. “I can’t give you the words for the pain I feel. The hole in my heart. My mom wasn’t just my mom, she was my best friend, and she was my business partner.”

She said it was unsettling that someone would kill her mom and dump the body in the woods.

“So, kind and so loving,” Deannia Hester said.

Diane Lewis Hester was a pastor at the Breach Ministry in Jacksonville, Florida. She also had her own school, but the family decided to move to Charlotte in 2020.

“We had to close our school down due to funding issues, and so my mom just decided to close the church and she wanted us all to move and just start over,” Deannia Hester said.

Police said Diane Lewis Hester was not reported missing because her daughter said the family wanted to give her space.

“My mom sometimes liked to hang out with her friends and so we tried not to micromanage her,” she said. “We are the kids, and she is the mother. So ‚we tried to let her live her life and not question her too much about who she’s spending time together with.”

Police haven’t said how Diane Lewis Hester was killed or if they have any suspects.

It will be a difficult case to solve because on how long the body had been in the woods.

“Nobody understood me like my mom and if someone could be arrested if someone,” her daughter said. “Could just tell anything us. It would help us close the chapter.”

VIDEO: Woman found dead in west Charlotte woods; CMPD investigating homicide