Forgive me for the tracheal vomiting: North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue has called in the National Guard to aid in the search for the remaining 2 missing women from the total of 11-ish persons who have turned up dead in Edgecombe County.

This reminds me of the dangers of overkill. When I was a kid I often trampled my mother’s flower garden, then tired to fix the problem by overcompensating: I once replaced her petunias with a maple tree – earnest, but conspicuous.

For all my criticisms of the Surete du Quebec, I have always admired their cunning dealing with problems. When I brought to their attention that they were in need of a cold case squad, did they acknowledge the problem? Hardly. They initiated a cold case squad, then pretended the idea was theirs all along, even going so far as to suggest that such a unit had been in place for years before the public was screaming for the need…

… gotta admire the balls.

Which brings us back to the case of the alleged Rocky Mount Serial Killer. You don’t just call in the National Guard without some implicit acknowledgment of the associated guilt: yada-yada-yada these were minority victims… yada-yada-yada we did nothing FOR YEARS until the public finally caught on to the obvious negligence of our inaction.

I leave it to you, dear reader, to fill in the rest. Here is the article from today’s News & Observer:

N.C. National Guard to aid in search for two missing Edgecombe women

BY THOMASI MCDONALD – STAFF WRITER
RALEIGH — Calling for a “more boots on the ground” approach, Gov. Bev Perdue has activated the North Carolina National Guard to help the Edgecombe County Task Force search for two missing women, the governor’s office announced today.

Edgecombe County Sheriff James L. Knight requested the assistance, according to a press statement from Perdue’s office.

Knight first contacted over the weekend, Rueben Young, the state’s secretary of crime control and public safety, asking for the National Guard’s help with finding if the remains of two other woman who have been reported missing, Yolonda Reee “Snap” Lancaster, 37, and Joyce Renee Durham, 26, are among the the bodies of five women who have been found in the woods off Seven Bridges Road in Northern Edgecombe County. Two were found not far away. A third was found near Scotland Neck.

Lancaster’s family has not seen her since March 2008. Durham was reported missing in June of 2007.

The guardsmen will be searching around Seven Bridges road near Whitakers, where the remains of five women have been found since August 2007.

“Having more boots on the ground will help law enforcement agencies cover a larger area and speed up search efforts,” Perdue said.

“We started to get more boots on the ground this morning,” Chrissy Pearson, a governor’s spokeswoman said today.

The National Guard provided about 100 soldiers who searched today for Lancaster and Durham. The soldiers are from the 1132nd and 514th military police companies, headquartered out of Rocky Mount and Greenville respectively. The task force, which has local, state and federal authorities, will be searching throughout the week.

In all, eight bodies have been found.

The skeletal remains of the latest victim, Roberta Williams, 40, was found March 27, in the woods off Seven Bridges Road by a group of all-terrain vehicle riders.

It’s not clear how Williams was found, but sheriff’s investigators are treating it as a suspicious death.

Earlier that month, on March 5, authorities found the remains of Christine Marie Boone, 43, in a wooded area in Scotland Neck in Halifax County.

After Williams’ body was found, Knight said his office notified the families of Lancaster and Durham.

But Williams had not been reported missing. When investigators probed her disappearance they obtained her medical records and the state medical examiner’s office used the information to identify her body, Knight said.

A task force consisting of the sheriff’s office, Rocky Mount police and the State Bureau of Investigation, began working together in June to determine if the women’s deaths were related and possibly the work of a serial killer.

In September. a grand jury indicted Antwan Maurice Pittman in the slaying of Taraha Shenice Nicholson, one of the women whose bodies have been found in the rural section of the county. Authorities have not said if Pittman would be charged with any of the other deaths.

The first victim, Melody Wiggins, 29, was found by police May 29, 2005 on Noble Mill Pond Road.

The partially skeletal, nude remains of Jackie Thorpe, 35, were found Aug. 17, 2007 in a trash heap behind a burned out crack house off Seven Bridges Road.

On March 13, 2008, the remains of Ernestine Battle, 50, were found facedown in the woods. Her remains were unclothed.

The skeletal remains of Jarneice “Sunshine” Hargrove, 31, were discovered June 29 by a migrant farmer working in a field.

The remains of Elizabeth Jane Smallwood, 33, were discovered in February of last year by Rocky Mount city employees and state prison inmates in a wooded area on Melton Road.

All of the women were African American and living on the margins of society with a history of drugs or prostitution and had disappeared. Family members and friends have said that some of the women knew each other.

Two disappointments cloaked as victories this week (the other I’ll get to shortly)…

The first is the discovery of remains in Edgecombe County last Saturday that have now been positively identified as those of Roberta Williams. I have avoided commenting on this recent newsoid for fear of flogging the Rocky Mount Missing Women story into the ground. My contempt for how authorities have mishandled these cases is hardly a secret, so let’s just spell it out:

Blatant racism… 11 black people are murdered or go missing in an area the size of a postage stamp and for nearly a decade no one manages to give a tinker’s cuss about the matter. Yes, deja shades of Robert Pickton and the Vancouver downtown Eastside murders all over again. It only took the Olympic games for B.C. to recover from that tragedy, so what do you think is in store for the tiny impoverished East Carolina region of Rocky Mount? I will tell you: the trauma of endless fear, self-loathing and humiliation.

It is no balm that Rocky Mount chief of police has finally… glacially… come forward and stated what has been obvious to my five-year-old child all along:  ”It’s clear that we are dealing with a suspected serial killer.”.

Thank you chief, you can go back to whatever busy work has occupied you for the last decade (perhaps there’s an abandoned vehicle that needs towing?). This week NC Wanted anchor Gerald Owens finally grew a pair and boldly asked of the chief, “how many more victims are there?”. Thanks for showing up Gerald, where have you been? This isn’t about giving your Kodak image the perfect frame for tragedy: this is a real story, with real families that are suffering: you should have been in the game years ago.

While we all sit and wait for this to play out (ya, as if it’s some kind of parlor game), the prime suspect, Antwan Pittman has been sitting in jail for 8 months. What are authorities waiting for? For a gun to literally smoke? Meanwhile victims’ families continue to be traumatized daily by the mistakes and missteps of an uncaring and insensitive media and justice system.

Let’s not forget that in the midst of this madness Newsweek got it right 5 months ago:

“For the families who just want to locate their daughters or bring closure to their murders, the investigation has been a long, drawn-out process. Tucker speaks about her daughter in the past tense, quickly catches herself, and shifts to the present tense, emphasizing her commitment to finding her daughter. “As far as the investigation goes, I just hope they continue to do the best they can to put closure to the missing girls and the girls that have been found,” Tucker says. “Whatever it is, we are here waiting.”

“Regardless of drug addiction or other problems, that still doesn’t give a person the right to kill another,” says Knight. “If we can give a terrorist a day in court, we can get these women justice.”"

BATTLEBORO, N.C. — Skeletal remains were found Saturday off Seven Bridges Road, between Battleboro and Whitakers in Edgecombe County. This is same rural area where the remains of several Rocky Mount women were found dead over the past four years.

Around 1:23 p.m., four-wheeler riders found the skeletal remains approximately 20 yards inside the woods, a news release from the Edgecombe County Sheriff’s office states.

The bodies of Taraha Nicholson, 29, Jarneice Hargrove, 31, Jackie Thorpe, 35, Ernestine Battle, 50, and Melody Wiggins, 29, were all found in fields within a 10-mile radius of one another in Edgecombe County. The body of Christine Boone, 43, was found this month about 20 miles away in Scotland Neck.

Each 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 disappearances of two other Edgecombe County women, Yolanda Lancaster and Joyce Durham.

Knight said the missing women’s families were notified Saturday about the human remains discovery.
“My nerves are just shot,” said Winston Kemp, Durham’s stepfather.

Durham has been missing since June 2007. Kemp said authorities told him that they don’t yet know the identification or the cause of death for the skeletal remains found Saturday.

“Is it her or is it not? I don’t know,” he said.

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.

Meanwhile, the investigation into the slain Rocky Mount women is ongoing.

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.

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.

Here’s an interesting perspective. This is a Google photo of my former house at 500 Robin Road (the red “A”:  where they thought Debbie Key was murdered (read Bad Dream House):

That monstrosity to the left? That would be former Senator John Edwards’ spread. A house is not a home?  I saw him a couple of weeks ago at the Harris Teeter buying his own groceries. Things change.

Rocky Mount deaths could go unsolved

RALEIGH, N.C. — The deaths of several women found in a 10-mile radius near Rocky Mount may never result in a conviction of the person or people responsible for their deaths, if they are determined to be homicides.

That’s according to retired Raleigh police detective Chris Morgan, who says there might not be enough evidence to build a case.

Morgan, who isn’t connected in any way to the investigation, says that based on what he can tell from autopsy results on the six victims – each discovered within a four-year period – prosecutors face an uphill battle in taking the cases to trial.Morgan talks about the challenges of a conviction.)

That’s because, of the six women, medical examiners have only been able to determine how two of them died.

“Undetermined cause of death is a huge challenge,” he said, adding that most prosecutors are reluctant to take a case to court without it. “You have to be able to articulate something from the witness stand about how an individual died. You have to have some workable theory about how the murder happened.” (Morgan talks about the challenges of an undetermined death.)

Of the two cases where a cause of death is known, Morgan says there is little likelihood that physical evidence, such as fingerprints or DNA, could have been recovered to help link the victim to her offender. (Morgan talks about the importance of evidence.)

All of the bodies were found in a rural area that is abundant with wildlife and insects, and they have been exposed to the elements for weeks, months and in some cases, years.

“All these things, once death occurs, start working against the investigator,” Morgan said. “A body that’s been left out for a week, in particularly in the warmer months in North Carolina, is going to be, in many cases, devoid of some of the most useful evidence that investigators look for in homicide investigations.”

A special task force of local, state and federal authorities is looking for possible links among the six cases.

The victims – Melody Wiggins, Jackie Thorpe, Ernestine Battle, Taraha Nicholson, Jarniece Hargrove and Elizabeth Smallwood – fit a similar profile. Each was black, had a history of drug use, prostitution or both, and family members and friends said many knew each other.

Investigators, however, have said very little about the case publicly, and family members say they have not heard much else.

The last time authorities spoke of the case was in September, when they charged Antwan Pittman in Nicholson’s death; an autopsy found she died of strangulation.

Hoping for further developments in the investigation – possibly more charges against Pittman – family members say they are now frustrated and upset that questions about their loved ones’ deaths remain unsolved.

Hargrove’s skeletal remains were discovered June 29 in a wooded area off Seven Bridges Road – more than a month after her family reported her missing.

“It’s just sad that it’s taken all this many months, and they haven’t succeeded on anything. If they have, they haven’t let us know anything,” her sister, Pepita Hargrove, said. “I know they can’t let out but so much information, but they can let the families that are grieving and crying constantly every day – they can let us know something.”

Autopsy results were inconclusive about how Hargrove died.

“They’re saying (her death) can’t be determined. That’s not enough information for me, and I’m not going to rest until somebody says something more,” Hargrove said. “My sister wasn’t out in the field picking daisies and fell on a rock and hit her head and rotted out there in the woods.”

Investigators can also look at circumstantial evidence to help in the investigations.

“You start looking at the circumstances — where these women were, who they were seen with, how they knew each other – and start trying to link cases and find common links,” Morgan said.

He says that after physical evidence, the next step is to build a profile and a timeline on a suspect and for investigators to reach out with as much information as possible. (Morgan on reaching out to the public.)

“You have to engage the public,” Morgan said. “They are your best weapon in working a case like this, because people see things. It’s just sometimes they don’t realize what they’ve seen.”

One of Morgan’s biggest unsolved cases, the 2002 rape and murder of Stephanie Bennett in Raleigh, was solved after more than three years, in part, because he kept the case in the media spotlight.

Edgecombe County Sheriff James Knight, who is overseeing five of the six cases, has generally declined to comment about them, and calls to his office have gone unreturned.

Rocky Mount police, who are handling the investigation into Smallwood’s death, as well as the missing persons cases of three other women fitting the same profile, are “actively working those cases” and seeking new leads from the public, a spokeswoman said.

“(The media) is the best weapon I’ve got to communicate with large numbers of people throughout the community and if I’m not willing to talk with news reporters, then I’m not using one of the most important potential weapons that I have in getting information,” Morgan said.

“You’ve got to replace that lack of physical evidence with something else, and that is most often times information that is buried somewhere deep in the community,” he added. “But it’s in that community, and you’ve got to pull it out.”

Just because a corporate profiler says it’s so don’t make it right (remember, he’s working for his own interests). Still, it might be time to add Travis RaRagus Harrison to the map:

Profiler: Crossdresser likely a victim of same killer as women

By Mike Hixenbaugh

Rocky Mount Telegram
Wednesday, December 09, 2009

A crime psychologist says he believes a crossdresser found dead in Rocky Mount three years ago likely was the victim of the same killer who claimed the lives of seven area women between 2003 and earlier this year.

The parents of 24-year-old Travis RaRegus Harrison said this week that Rocky Mount police are looking into possible connections between their son’s death and the unsolved deaths of seven women, as well as three other missing women. A fisherman and his son found Harrison’s naked body on June 25, 2006, discarded in a thicket along the Tar River off East Virginia Street.

“I’m believing that this murder, more probably than not, is related to the others,” said John Kelly, profiler and president of the New Jersey-based System to Apprehend Lethal Killers.

Kelly has followed the Rocky Mount case closely since June, when investigators announced a state and local task force investigation into the series of missing women and murders in the community. Kelly said the fact that Harrison was a known crossdresser would have made him a potential target for a habitual killer who typically stalks women.

Like the seven other victims, Harrison was black, known to abuse cocaine and sometimes traded his body to pacify his addiction.

“The guy matches the profile of all the female victims,” Kelly said. “He had the same drug of choice, was out in the same areas around the same timeframe, and he was a crossdresser. I have to believe it was probably the same killer, because for that size population, how many sexual murderers could you possibly have in the same area?”

That’s the question Harrison’s mother, Lillian Clark, said she has been asking herself. Clark sat with her husband, Joe, in their Branch Street living room Monday and tried to explain how she felt when she realized her son’s body had been found, naked except for his socks and discarded by the river a few miles from their home. She couldn’t find the words.

The Clarks were surrounded by framed photos of Lillian’s three children. As his wife recalled stories from her son’s childhood, Joe Clark reached above the couch and pulled down a picture of Harrison, his stepson.

“We didn’t know what he was into,” Joe Clark said. “You know kids. They don’t tell you what they do when they leave the house. It wasn’t until afterward that we found out.”

It had been several months since the Clarks had heard from authorities regarding the investigation into Harrison’s death. That was until two weeks ago, they said, when investigators from the Rocky Mount Police Department showed up asking for a new photo of their son. Capt. Laura Fahnestock said the visit was part of the department’s recent effort to re-examine unsolved cases, declining to speak in further detail about the case.

“They said they didn’t know anything new, and that they were out of leads,” Lillian Clark said. “And they said they were investigating to see if his death had anything to do with the other killings.”

Federal, state and local investigators have been careful not to say whether or not they have evidence showing the deaths are linked, but authorities said they believe similarities in the victims’ backgrounds and the circumstances of their deaths are enough to at least raise the suspicion of a possible serial killer.

Kelly, who played a role along with his partner Frank Adamson in helping profile and catch the Green River Killer in Seattle earlier this decade, said he’s almost certain the deaths have come at the hands of a habitual killer.

If he’s right, Kelly said, Harrison’s death wouldn’t be the first time a serial killer known for stalking women attacked a female impersonator. Kelly referenced the Tamiami Strangler, a Miami man who killed six prostitutes in 1994, including one crossdresser.

“It’s rare, but there are a few cases out there,” Kelly said. “It’s very plausible.”

When asked a couple of weeks ago about any possible connections between Harrison’s death and the seven women found dead since 2003, Rocky Mount police declined to detail their ongoing investigation. Because most of the bodies were found outside city limits, Edgecombe County Sheriff James Knight is leading the probe, but Rocky Mount police are heading the investigations into the deaths of Harrison and Elizabeth Smallwood, both found within city limits.

“We investigate each case on its own, and we are not going to publicly link together any cases unless we have evidence showing that there is, in fact, a connection,” Fahnestock said. “Of course, we do consider other cases for any possible similarities when we investigate.”

Authorities in September arrested Antwan Maurice Pittman, 31, and charged him in one of the deaths, the March murder of 28-year-old Taraha Nicholson. Investigators won’t say if they believe the Rocky Mount man, a registered sex offender, might be involved in any of the other deaths.

N.C. Superior Court Judge Toby Fitch ordered that all arrest and search warrants related to the case be sealed from the public, making it difficult to surmise what evidence investigators might have linking Pittman to the murder.

The case, which grabbed national headlines this summer, has shined light on the city’s fight against the illegal sex and drug trade and has inspired a local coalition of community advocates working to raise awareness about murdered and missing women.

A $20,000 reward is offered to anyone with a tip leading to an arrest in the women’s deaths. Anyone with information about the case is asked to call Twin County Crime Stoppers at 252-977-1111.

WITN News:

A bizarre twist in the investigation of the unsolved deaths of seven women in Rocky Mount and Edgecombe County, which some say is the work of a serial killer.

The parents of 24-year-old Travis Harrison, say Rocky Mount Police are looking into whether their sons death three years ago is linked to the women found dead, according to the Rocky Mount Telegram. The paper says Harrison was found dead in Rocky Mount in June 2006.

His stepfather tells the telegram, Harrison was a cross dresser, and like other victims, has been linked to drug abuse and prostitution.