Remember the woman lost for a month in the woods? Police think they know why — meth

The woman who garnered nationwide attention for reportedly surviving a month in the woods off wild berries and mushrooms might have been lost because she was high on drugs, police say.

Lisa Theris, 25, emerged from acres of dense woods in Midway, Alabama on Aug. 12 after she had been reported missing for nearly a month.

Her survival was widely heralded as a feat of great luck and superb survival skills. She lost around 50 pounds during her time in the woods, according to reports, drinking muddy water out of a brook and foraging for wild berries and mushrooms.

At first, it was believed Theris ran away in the forest after discovering two men she was there with had plans to burglarize a hunting camp. It was reported that she ripped off her red shirt because she was afraid the two men would try to find and harm her.

Now, Bullock County Sheriff Raymond Rodgers has another theory for her month-long disappearance in the woods: hallucinations brought on by methamphetamine, according to an in-depth article on the incident from the Daily Mail.

“Me personally, I think she was on meth, she was hallucinating and she just got lost in the woods,” he said to the Daily Mail. “She was probably so under the influence of drugs that she stripped her clothes off. She was in a strange place, she came to, she didn’t know where she was. I don’t know how much drugs she took but I believe she was in there the whole time.”

Manly Davis, 31, and Randy Oswald, 36, were the two men Theris was last seen with before they allegedly burglarized a hunting camp.

Before she was found, the men reportedly gave police officers wildly different accounts of what happened to Theris, according to the Daily Mail.

Davis is said to have told police that Theris hopped out of their truck when they attempted to ram the metal entry gates of the camp — but Oswald reportedly told police that they shot Theris in the back of the head, put her body in a garbage bag and tossed it into a creek.

Those incompatible stories led Rodgers to think there was another layer to Theris’ disappearance.

“They were so geeked out that they started blaming each other for a murder that didn’t happen,” he said to the Daily Mail. “They were as relieved as we were when she walked out of those woods. They were thinking they killed her.”

“We are thinking they were all pretty much on drugs,” he added.

The Bullock County Sheriff's Office confirmed in a phone call the accuracy of the quotes from the Daily Mail article, which also includes interviews with other local figures about the veracity of Theris’ story.

But the office said it is not yet proven if Theris was actually on drugs.

This story was originally published August 23, 2017 at 8:55 AM with the headline "Remember the woman lost for a month in the woods? Police think they know why — meth."