SAMPSON COUNTY – A man riding an all-terrain vehicle in the woods on a summer day made a horrific discovery: The decomposing body of a murdered woman under an old mattress.
The woman had been stabbed in the neck and left to die. She was dead anywhere from three weeks to two months before being discovered. She was found at 2 p.m. July 20, 1999, a Tuesday afternoon.
A medical examiner estimated her age to be between 17 and 24. She was white, possibly Hispanic and 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighing about 110 pounds.
Investigators believe the woman may have been a prostitute because of her attire and proximity to a labor camp where prostitution occurred on a regular basis.
The woman had long red hair and blue-painted fingernails. She was wearing a dark blue tank top with spaghetti straps over a dark blue lace padded bra and green Calvin Klein jeans over lavender panties with lace borders. She had an Elle analog watch with a yellow metal band.
Her body was about 100 yards from a migrant camp known as Inez Labor Camp or Eugene Roberts Labor Camp on Easy Street in the Timothy community between Dunn and Newton Grove in Sampson County. At the time the woman was found, women were known to traffic this camp.
Fingerprinting is impossible, but her dental and DNA charts are available. Her teeth were well cared for and had no fillings.
The missing women have been ruled out as being this woman: Shannon Arif from Tennessee, born in 1977; Brooke Henson of South Carolina, born in 1979; Suzanne Lyall of New York, born in 1978; Cynthia Perry of North Carolina, born in 1967; Cory Rubio of Louisiana, born in 1974; Patricia Schmidt of Virginia, born in 1964; Tiffany Sessions of Florida, born in 1968; and Laura Thompson of Pennsylvania, born in 1967.
If anyone has any information, they should call the Sampson County Sheriff’s Office at 910-592-4141, the tip line at 910-564-5261 or email at cid@intrstar.net; or the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation at 910-486-1262.
