Black and Missing but Not Forgotten

Investigators say it could take a week to identify skeletal remains found Saturday in an Edgecombe County area where the bodies of other Rocky Mount women were discovered.

Ryan Page said he discovered the human remains around 1:23 p.m. off Seven Bridges Rood, between Battleboro and Whitakers.

“A few of the bones were lying around here,” Page said Sunday while revisiting the area. “It was kind of crazy seeing something like that out here.”

Within a 10-mile radius of that same area, the bodies of Taraha Nicholson, 29, Jarneice Hargrove, 31, Jackie Thorpe, 35, Ernestine Battle, 50, and Melody Wiggins, 29, were found over the past four years.

“It was a nice area out here, and it’s kind of been ruined by all the bodies being dumped out here,” Ryan said.

Each slain woman was black, reported missing and had a history of drug use or prostitution. Family members and friends have said that many knew each other.

A special task force of local, state and federal authorities has been investigating the deaths, as well as the discovery of Christine Boone’s body. The 43-year-old woman was found this month about 20 miles away in Scotland Neck.

Two other women, Yolanda Lancaster and Joyce Durham, are also missing from the area.

The missing women’s families were notified Saturday about the discovery of the remains.

“The first thing that hit my mind was Lord, please don’t let it be my baby,” said Juray Tucker, Lancaster’s mother.

Lancaster has been missing since February 2009. Authorities said both missing women have similar profiles as the other Rocky Mount women and that they are considering a possible connection.

Page said he also found a bracelet beside the human remains Saturday. Tucker said investigators had her look at the bracelet, but she didn’t recognize it.

She said she hopes the remains found Saturday do not belong to her daughter.

“That she’s still alive. I keep that hope. I won’t lose that hope,” Tucker said.

Authorities have charged Antwan Maurice Pittman, 31, with first-degree murder in Nicholson’s death. But they have been relatively quiet about whether he might be suspected in any of the other deaths.

Records show Pittman also once lived near a wooded area off Seven Bridges Road where remains of three of the slain women were found.

A North Carolina Highway Patrol trooper also arrested Pittman for driving while impaired and driving with a revoked license after finding him along Seven Bridges Road on April 25, 2009 – that same day family members last reported seeing Hargrove, according to the warrant.

Hargrove’s remains were found on June 29, 2009, about 200 yards from where the trooper said Pittman was parked.

Thorpe’s remains were found Aug. 17, 2007, in the same area along Seven Bridges Road. She had been reported missing in May 2007.

Battle’s remains were found in the same area on March 14, 2008. She had been missing since February 2008.

Anyone with information about the slain women or the human remains found Saturday is asked to call the Edgecombe County Sheriff’s Office at 252-641-7911 or Rocky Mount Crime Stoppers at 252-977-1111.

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From Earlier Reports:

A man already charged with first-degree murder in the death of a Rocky Mount woman is also believed to be involved in the deaths of four other Rocky Mount women, according to a search warrant obtained by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation on Friday.

The warrant, obtained for the search of Pittman’s former residence at 98 Nasturtium Lane in Scotland Neck, states that probable cause exists to believe Pittman was involved in the deaths of Jackie Nikelia Thorpe, Ernestine Battle, Jarniece Latonya Hargrove, Taraha Shenice Nicholson and Christine Marie Boone.

Pittman was charged in September in Nicholson’s death. Her remains were found on March 7, 2009, on Marriott Road in Edgecombe County, two weeks after the 29-year-old was reported missing.

DNA found on Nicholson’s body matched that of Pittman, according to the search warrant.

Pittman was also linked to a wooded area off Seven Bridges Road, near Rocky Mount, where Hargrove’s remains were found on June 29, 2009.

Family members reported last seeing Hargrove on April 25, 2009. That morning, North Carolina Highway Patrol Trooper J.J. Scott responded to an accident in a ditch along Seven Bridges Road, according to the warrant.

At the scene, Scott found Pittman asleep in the driver’s seat of a vehicle, about 200 yards from where Hargrove’s body was eventually found. Dirt was on his boots and his pants were unzipped.

Thorpe’s remains were found Aug. 17, 2007, in the same area along a Seven Bridges Road, between Battleboro and Whitakers in Edgecombe County. She had been reported missing in May 2007.

Battle’s remains were found in the same area on March 14, 2008. She had been missing since February 2008.

Pittman grew up in the area and worked on a farm near the vicinity of where the bodies were found in Edgecombe County, according to the search warrant.

Boone’s remains were found March 5 in a wooded area behind Pittman’s former residence, 98 Nasturtium Lane in Scotland Neck.

Halifax County Sheriff’s deputies have been assisting in the search of 18-year-old Jalesa Reynolds, who went missing from the local library on Feb. 22. It appears a deputy involved in that search found Boone’s remains. Authorities would not comment on the investigation.

Authorities investigating the Boone’s death executed a search warrant at a mobile home located at 98 Nasturtium Lane on Friday.

According to the search warrant, authorities believe Boone might have been killed at the vacant mobile. DNA testing was done at the home, according to the Halifax County Sheriff’s Office.

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Police said Friday that they have identified a body found earlier this month in Halifax County as a Rocky Mount woman who had been missing for nearly four years.

In a news release Friday afternoon, Rocky Mount police Chief John Manley said the skeletal remains of Christine Marie Boone, 43, were found March 5 in a wooded area behind the former residence of Antwan Maurice Pittman.

Pittman was charged in September with first-degree murder in the death of Taraha Shenice Nicholson, another Rocky Mount woman who is among six found dead in Edgecombe County over the past several years.

Boone was one of three missing women who fit a similar profile of those six – each was black, had a history of drug use, prostitution or both, and family members and friends said many knew each other.

A special task force of local, state and federal authorities is looking for possible links among the cases. The last time authorities spoke of the investigation was in September, when they charged Pittman in Nicholson’s death.

A family member reported Boone missing to Rocky Mount police on Jan. 16, 2007 and was last seen Aug. 25, 2006.

Rocky Mount police said her remains were found in a wooded area behind 98 Nasturtium Lane in Scotland Neck, the residence they say Pittman lived in 2006. A vacant mobile home currently sits on the property.

“We want the public to know that while this case is complex and ongoing, law enforcement is working diligently to resolve this matter,” Manley said.

It is unclear, still, how Boone died.

“My sister was a very loving and caring person who got caught up with the wrong crowd,” Boone’s sister, Minnie Jones, of Knightdale, said Friday afternoon.

Boone leaves behind three children and seven grandchildren.

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