who killed theresa?

Search warrant links Pittman to murders of five local women

By Mike Hixenbaugh
Rocky Mount Telegram
Monday, March 15, 2010

Investigators have reason to believe Antwan Maurice Pittman was involved in the murders of at least five Rocky Mount women, according to a search warrant filed this month by the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation.
Authorities searched Pittman’s former residence, 98 Nasturtium Lane in Scotland Neck, on Friday after Halifax County deputies found the remains of 43-year-old Christine Boone behind the home earlier this month while searching for another missing person.
According to the search warrant, investigators believe Boone, a Rocky Mount woman missing since 2006, might have been killed at the property.
Pittman is in prison awaiting trial after authorities charged him in September in the March 2009 murder of 28-year-old Taraha Nicholson, one of seven other Rocky Mount women found dead in swampy and wooded fields around the east border of the city since 2003.
Until Monday, investigators and prosecutors had been tight-lipped about what evidence they might have against Pittman in Nicholson’s death or if they believed he might have had ties to the other murders.
According to the search warrant filed in Halifax County this month, authorities relied on DNA evidence to link Pittman, a registered sex offender, to Nicholson’s murder. His semen was found on her remains, the search warrant said.
A few weeks after Nicholson was killed, a trooper with the N.C. Highway Patrol reportedly found Pittman the morning of April 25 in a ditch off Seven Bridges Road sleeping in his car. Pittman had dirt on his boots, the search warrant said, and his pants were unzipped.
It was the same day Jarniece Latonya Hargrove, one of the victims, was last seen by her family. Her body was recovered in June in a field off Seven Bridges Road, about 200 yards from where the trooper said Pittman’s car was parked.
The remains of Jackie Thorpe, 35, and Ernestine Battle, 50, also were found along the stretch of rural farm land and woods a few miles northeast of Rocky Mount.
Pittman grew up in a home near where the bodies were found and worked on a farm along the rural stretch, investigators wrote in the search warrant, and it’s believed he was very familiar with the area.
“Based on the above information, there is probable cause to believe that Antwan Maurice Pittman was involved in the homicides of Thorpe, Battle, Nicholson, Hargrove and Boone,” SBI Special Agent E.D. Smith wrote in the search warrant.
Hargrove’s mother, Patsy Hargrove, was shocked to hear authorities had evidence – albeit circumstantial – linking the accused killer to her daughter’s murder.
“I feel like information has been withheld from us all this time,” Patsy Hargrove said after learning of the search warrants through media reports. “I got sick after hearing it. Why didn’t they tell us they had this evidence?”
Investigators generally don’t release information about evidence if they don’t have enough to press charges, authorities said. Search warrants filed in Edgecombe County last year to search Pittman’s former Rocky Mount residences were sealed by judge’s order.
The silence from authorities made Patsy Hargrove and the other victims’ mothers question if investigators had any evidence against Pittman.
“In the beginning, I didn’t think he could have done all this,” Hargrove said. “But now bits and pieces are being put together, and I don’t have any choice but to think that he did. I’m just praying it will all come out in the open so everyone will find out what he did to our loved ones.”
Talk of a serial killer stalking women has swirled through East Rocky Mount the past few years.
In June, authorities revealed that a federal, state and local task force, led by Edgecombe County Sheriff James Knight, had been investigating possible connections between the unsolved deaths of Hargrove, Nicholson, Battle, Thorpe, Wiggins, Elizabeth Smallwood, 33, and Denise Williams, 21.
All of the women were black, had a history of drug abuse and prostitution and moved through the same social circles, according to family and friends.
Pittman had been arrested multiple times by Rocky Mount police in recent years and charged with soliciting for prostitution.
Nash County authorities first arrested Pittman in July after he failed to update his address as a registered sex offender. A month later while still in jail, Pittman was charged with first-degree murder in Nicholson’s death. He pleaded not guilty to the charge.
Some in the community have called for the 2005 death of Travis Raregus Harrison – a 25-year-old crossdresser found naked and strangled in a field off East Virginia Street – to be included in the multi-agency probe.
Pittman is being held at Central Prison in Raleigh.

Search warrant connects Rocky Mount murder suspect to five slain women

ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. — 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 women with similar profiles, according to a search warrant obtained by WRAL News on Monday.

The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation searched a former residence of Antwan Maurice Pittman after his arrest in the strangling death of Taraha Shenice Nicholson.

Pittman was charged with first-degree murder 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.

Probable cause exists to believe Pittman was also involved in the deaths of Jackie Nikelia Thorpe, Ernestine Battle, Jarniece Latonya Hargrove and Christine Marie Boone, according to the search warrant.

Records show Pittman also once lived near a wooded area off Seven Bridges Road, near Rocky Mount, where remains of two of the women were found.

The warrant describes how North Carolina Highway Patrol Trooper J.J. Scott, responding to a report of an accident in a ditch along Seven Bridges Road, found Pittman asleep in the driver’s seat of a vehicle on April 25, 2009.

That same day, family members reported last seeing Hargrove. Her remains were found on June 29, 2009, about 200 yards from where the trooper said Pittman was parked.

Pittman had dirt on his boots and his pants were unzipped, according to the warrant. He was arrested and charged with driving while impaired, according to the Highway Patrol.

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 and worked on a farm near the vicinity of where those three bodies were found in Edgecombe County, according to the search warrant.

Halifax County sheriff’s deputies found Boone’s remains March 5 in a wooded area behind another known Pittman residence, 98 Nasturtium Lane in Scotland Neck.

After the discovery, authorities searched a home at that location on Friday.

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

Another pointless article in the Raleigh News & Observer. What, was this written by the Associated press? You’d think they were doing a national news roundup for all the care and detail they don’t give the piece.

Hello? News & Observer? This isn’t some regional news bon-bon, it’s the story of eight nine people who have turned up dead less than 30 miles from your outskirts. This is likely the work of a serial killer? Raleigh? this is your problem too.

News and Observer, March 13, 2010

Skeletal remains found a week ago in a wooded area in Scotland Neck have been identified as a Rocky Mount woman missing for nearly four years.

Christine Marie Boone, 43, was last seen Aug. 25, 2006, in Rocky Mount by a family member. Law enforcement officials recovered her remains in a wooded area behind a vacant mobile home at 98 Nasturtium Lane, Scotland Neck, and her identity was confirmed by the Greenville medical examiner.

Antwan Maurice Pittman lived in that mobile home in 2006, according to a Rocky Mount Police Department news release. But, on Friday, Pittman had not been charged with Boone’s death.

Pittman is currently being held at the Edgecombe County jail, arrested in September and charged with the strangulation death of Taraha Shenice Nicholson, 28, one of six homicides dating back to 2005. Boone is the seventh.

All of the victims were black women, most with troubled pasts of drug abuse and prostitution.

Five of the bodies were recovered from a swampy, wooded area in rural Edgecombe County, about 60 miles northeast of Raleigh. The sixth woman’s body was discovered about seven miles from where the others were found.

A task force of local, state and federal law enforcement officials was formed last June to investigate the possibility of a serial killer.

Two women who fit the profile of those slain remain missing.

Joyce Renee Durham, 46, was reported missing in June 2007. Yolanda Renee “Snap” Lancaster, 37, was reported missing in March 2008.

Anyone with information about Boone’s death should contact Halifax County Sheriff Jeff Frazier or Major Bruce Temple at 252-583-8201. Callers also may contact Twin County Crime Stoppers at 252-977-1111 or the Edgecombe County Sheriff’s Office at 252-641-7911.

Police found the remains of Christine Marie Boone behind a residence once occupied by Antwan Maurice Pittman. That brings the total to 9 bodies found in the area surrounding the small town of Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Explain to me how police do not have yet enough evidence to charge Antwan Maurice Pittman? Just how badly have police botched these cases?

ROCKY MOUNT (WTVD) — Police say they’ve identified skeletal remains found in a wooded area behind 98 Nasturtium Lane in Scotland Neck on March 5 as 43-year-old Christine Marie Boone.

She was reported missing to the Rocky Mount Police Department on January 16, 2007 and was last seen on August 25, 2006 at 801 S. Grace Street in Rocky Mount by a family member. Police said the address at 98 Nasturtium Lane is a vacant mobile home presently, but they said Antwan Maurice Pittman lived there in 2006. Pittman was arrested in September 2009 for death of Taraha Nicholson and is in the custody of the Edgecombe County Sheriff’s Department.

He has not been charged in Boone’s death and police said the investigation is ongoing.

Six other women found slain

Pittman is just charged with the single murder. Police have not called him a suspect in six other deaths.

In addition to Nicholson, Ernestine Battle, 50, Jackie Nikelia Thorpe, 35, Melody Wiggins, 29, and Jarneice Hargrove, 31, were all found between 2005 and early this year in the same rural area outside Rocky Mount.

The body of the first woman – Wiggins – was found in May 2005 on Noble Mill Pond Road. She’d been beaten and stabbed.

Thorpe was found in August 2007. Her head and an arm had been cut off.

In February, skeletal remains that have yet to be identified were found, and then Battle was found in March, 2008 in some woods. The medical examiner said it was not possible to determine a cause of death.

Nicholson was found in March, and Hargrove was found in June by a farmer.

Two other women are missing.

Yolanda Lancaster, 37, and Joyce Renee Durham, 46, have not been heard from by their families for months.

The victims all had similar backgrounds. All were linked to drug abuse and possible prostitution.

Investigators have refused to speculate on whether the killings are the work of a serial killer.

Public’s help needed

Police say they need the public’s assistance in providing any information they may have. Anyone with information in the Boone death investigation is asked to contact Halifax County Sheriff Jeff Frazier or Major Bruce Temple at (252) 583-8201.

Senator Ruth,

My sister was murdered in Canada (it is an unsolved case going on 31-years), I have three daughters.

I respect your position, but please move on. Do not waste your voice, advantage, and tremendous political capital on such a trivial issue as national anthem nomenclature. If you wish to help the plight of women in Canada, please get with your counterpart, Senator Pierre Hugues Boisvenu and improve the laws which currently favor offenders over victims.

Sincerely,

John Allore
www.theresaallore.com

Is anyone surprised by this news?  No. Because we still have a police culture so set in its ways that they’d prefer to rely on memory, scratch pads and file boxes to solve problems when more than adequate tools are practically begging for utilization. Tools that could save lives:

PC News by David Murphy

MINNEAPOLIS – A new online database promises to crack some of the nation’s 100,000 missing persons cases and provide answers to desperate families, but only a fraction of law enforcement agencies are using it.

The clearinghouse, dubbed NamUs (Name Us), offers a quick way to check whether a missing loved one might be among the 40,000 sets of unidentified remains that languish at any given time with medical examiners across the country. NamUs is free, yet many law enforcement agencies still aren’t aware of it, and others aren’t convinced they should use their limited staff resources to participate.

Janice Smolinski hopes that changes — and soon. Her son, Billy, was 31 when he vanished five years ago. The Cheshire, Conn., woman fears he was murdered, his body hidden away.

She’s now championing a bill in Congress, named “Billy’s Law” after her son, that would set aside more funding and make other changes to encourage wider use of NamUs. Only about 1,100 of the nearly 17,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide are registered to use the system, even though it already has been hailed for solving 16 cases since it became fully operational last year.

“As these cases become more well known, as people learn about the successes of NamUs, more and more agencies are going to want to be part of it,” said Kristina Rose, acting director of the National Institute of Justice at the Justice Department.

Before NamUs, families and investigators had to go through the slow process of checking with medical examiner’s offices one by one. As the Smolinski family searched for clues to Billy’s fate, they met a maze of federal, state and nonprofit missing person databases that weren’t completely public and didn’t share information well with each other.

NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, allows one-stop sleuthing for amateurs, families and police. Anyone can enter all the data they have on a missing person, including descriptions, photos, fingerprints, dental records and DNA. Medical examiners can enter the same data on unidentified bodies, and anyone can search the database for potential matches that warrant further investigation.

So far, about 6,200 sets of remains and nearly 2,800 missing people have been entered, said Kevin Lothridge, CEO of the National Forensic Science Technology Center in Largo, Fla., which runs NamUs for the Justice Department.

Detective Jim Shields of the Omaha, Neb., Police Department hadn’t heard about NamUs until he saw a presentation at a conference in 2008. He then had a local volunteer associated with NamUs input his data on several missing people.

Among them was Luis Fernandez, who had been missing for nearly a year before his family went to police in 2008. Shields didn’t have a lot on Fernandez, a known gang member who’d been in and out of jail — only gender, race, height, weight, age and some data on his tattoos.

It proved to be enough. Just a few weeks later, similarities were spotted with the unidentified remains of a homicide victim found in a farm field in Iowa in 2007. In January, a lab informed Shields it had a DNA match — and that he could break the news to Fernandez’ family.

“I could say fairly certainly that this would never have been solved if not for NamUs,” Shields said.

Some other recent successes:

• Paula Beverly Davis, of the Kansas City, Mo., area, had been missing for 22 years until a relative saw a public service announcement on TV in October for NamUs and told her sister, who gave it a try. Among the 10 matches her sister found were a body dumped in Ohio in 1987 that had the same rose and unicorn tattoos as her sister. DNA tests confirmed the body was Davis.

• Sonia Lente disappeared in 2002. Last June, an amateur cybersleuth with the Doe Network, a nationwide volunteer group that helps law enforcement solve cold cases, noticed similarities between Lente’s description in NamUs and an unidentified body found near Albuquerque, N.M., in 2004. Dental records later established it was Lente.

Detective Stuart Somershoe of the Phoenix Police Department said his agency, which has over 500 open missing persons cases, just finished entering 100 cases into NamUs. He’s hopeful his department can make a match.

“It’s kind of time-consuming but I think it’s a worthwhile program,” Somershoe said.

NamUs grew out of a Justice Department task force working on the challenge of solving missing persons cases. One need that the task force identified was to give people who could help solve cases better access to database information.

“Billy’s Law” sailed through the House late last month and is pending in the Senate, where supporters are confident it will easily pass.

The bill would authorize $10 million in grants annually that police, sheriffs, medical examiners and coroners could use to train people to use NamUs and to help cover the costs of entering data into the system. It would also authorize another $2.4 million a year to run the system and ensure permanent funding.

The bill would also link NamUs with a major FBI crime database that’s now available only to law enforcement, partly because it contains sensitive information about ongoing investigations. That confidential data would be withheld from NamUs when necessary.

Billy Smolinski, of Waterbury, Conn., was last seen Aug. 24, 2004, when he asked a neighbor to look after his dog. His pickup truck was later found outside his home, though not where he usually parked it. His wallet and other belongings were still inside.

The Smolinski family first struggled to get police to take a missing adult case seriously. It took a long time for investigators to finally conclude Billy had been killed, perhaps as a result of a love triangle gone sour. The family put up reward posters, searched places where they thought his body might have been hidden and kept pressure on police.

Smolinski said she came to see how police were often overwhelmed, but to her NamUs is a “no-brainer.”

“If they find remains I’m hopeful they’ll identify him through NamUs,” Smolinski said.

On the Net:

National Missing and Unidentified Persons System: http://www.namus.gov

J’ai deux chers amis, Marjean Fichtenberg et Edmunds Sherry-Flett qui sont dans le milieu de faire quelques recherches victime, à Abbotsford. Ils tentent d’évaluer la nécessité d’un centre d’aide pour les victimes d’homicide à Abbotsford et les gens ont besoin de remplir un sondage en ligne.

Contexte: Le fils de Marjean, Dennis a été assassiné à Prince George en 1991 (l’histoire de la suite pour Marjean est aussi horrible que la lutte de toute victime a j’ai entendu). Elle est membre du Canada Commission des libérations conditionnelles comité consultatif pour les victimes, et est régulièrement invité affiché sur ce blog pendant plusieurs mois. Sherry a soulevé dans le capital de prison au Canada, à Kingston, en Ontario. Elle a enseigné dans les systèmes de prison pour plusieurs années, et est un pionnier dans des initiatives de justice réparatrice au Canada.

Personnellement, je pense que c’est une évidence, ne le capital d’assassiner du Canada ont besoin d’un centre de victimes? Hell Yes! Mais la recherche et l’allocation des ressources du gouvernement ne fonctionne pas vraiment de cette façon.

Alors s’il vous plaît prendre un moment pour remplir leur questionnaire. Cliquez ici pour accéder au site.

Le discours du Trône tient compte des revendications de l’AFPAD

René-Charles Quirion
La Tribune
(Ottawa) C’est avec un discours du trône favorable aux projets de loi en faveur des victimes et qui serre la vis aux criminels que Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu commence sa carrière au Sénat.

Un poste qu’il a accepté en mettant la condition de pouvoir continuer à défendre les victimes d’actes criminels sur la place publique.

«Je suis très heureux du discours du Trône qui prévoit une modification à l’assurance-emploi en faveur des familles victimes de meurtre et qui offre aux employés sous règlementation fédérale la possibilité de prendre un congé sans solde à la suite d’un acte criminel vécu par un membre de leur famille. C’est un beau cadeau que l’on fait aux familles de victimes qui devrait être appuyé par le Parti libéral et le Bloc québécois», explique le nouveau sénateur conservateur qui avait fait une sortie publique sur le sujet en compagnie de la députée bloquiste de Compton-Stanstead, France Bonsant, avant sa nomination au Sénat.

Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu se réjouit qu’une douzaine de projets de loi inclus dans le discours du Trône fassent partie des revendications présentées par l’AFPAD.

Peines plus sévères

«Le gouvernement souhaite rendre les peines plus sévères pour les criminels qui touchent aux enfants. Un projet de loi souhaite faire en sorte que les récidivistes en matière de meurtres restent incarcérés, alors qu’un autre améliorera les procédures pénales pour réduire la durée des procès. Je pars avec le discours du Trône sous le bras pour en expliquer la philosophie à la population. Par la suite, mon mandat sera d’appuyer ces projets de loi au Sénat en amenant des exemples concrets de familles victimes. Les conservateurs étant majoritaires au Sénat, nous pourrons même inviter des proches de victimes à venir témoigner de leur expérience en comité sénatorial», explique M. Boisvenu.

Le nouveau sénateur n’entend pas y rester jusqu’à 75 ans et encore moins y jouer un rôle de figurant.

Police have a suspect in the case of Louise Chaput, the Sherbrooke social worker who disappeared and was found murdered in the White Mountains of New Hampshire in 2001. NH police aren’t saying much other than that the suspect is male and lived in the NH region at that time.

There is DNA evidence from the crime scene that could link the suspect.

- TVA film footage here.

- Details on Chaput from the NH cold case website here.