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(CNN) – Alabama police found on Friday the body of a missing woman since December 20.
Paighton Houston disappeared after leaving a bar in Birmingham, his family said. He sent a text message to a co-worker saying he was with strangers and felt he was in trouble.
A woman’s body was found Friday in a shallow grave behind a house in Hueytown, Alabama, Trussville police detective Ben Short said in a statement.
The remains were positively identified as Houston and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office continues to investigate his death, Short said.
Trussville police and the Metro Area Crime Center developed information on Thursday that led police to the house in Hueytown, Short said.
“I don’t know these people,” Houston wrote in a text message.
Houston, 29, lived in Trussville, approximately 24 miles by car northeast of downtown Birmingham.
He was visiting the Tin Roof bar in Birmingham the night he disappeared, his family says. She was last seen leaving the bar with two husky black men, says Birmingham police.
It seems that he voluntarily left the bar with the two men, police say.
“If I call you answer, I don’t know these people and I feel in trouble,” says the text message, according to his mother, Charlaine Houston. Paighton Houston had driven to the bar with his co-worker earlier in the day, his mother wrote.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey offered a $ 5,000 reward for credible information in the Houston search. Crime Stoppers also offered a reward of $ 5,000.
CNN’s Hollie Silverman, Jason Hanna and Tina Burnside contributed to this report.
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