Detective finds remains he says belong to slain Bragg soldier Kelli Bordeaux

Pfc. Kelli Bordeaux was missing for more than two years before her remains were found in a wooded area off Interstate 295 in Cumberland County last May. An autopsy determined she died of several blows to the head.

Nicholas Michael Holbert, a 27-year-old drifter, was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping in the case. Police say he and Bordeaux were arguing outside a Fayetteville bar in April 2012 when he knocked her out, drove her into the woods, beat her to death and buried her.

According to the autopsy report, authorities weren't able to recover all of Bordeaux's remains. Police told her mother, Johnna Henson, they did the best they could, and she wasn't satisfied when they refused to return to the crime scene to search for more remains.

"If your daughter was buried out in the woods, wouldn't you want her all back, not just parts of her?" Henson said. "A major bone in her neck is missing that shows that she was choked. They're not concerned that there are two of those bones and one is missing. That's very concerning to me."

So, she hired David Marshburn, a Smithfield private investigator who befriended Holbert and eventually persuaded Holbert to lead him to Bordeaux's body.

Marshburn said he returned to the wooded area on Sunday and found more remains that he is convinced belong to the former Fort Bragg medic.

"I was the original one who was on the site when we found her," he said.

He turned the bones over to Fayetteville police, and they have been sent to the State Medical Examiner's Office for identification.

"I hope that what we have done will help change some of the procedures that the Fayetteville police go through and the way they handle certain cases," he said. "I am not saying that they didn't do their job, but they could have done better."

Fayetteville Police Chief Harold Medlock defended his department's efforts to recover Bordeaux's remains, adding that he couldn't provide addition details of their work because of the pending case against Holbert.

"The detectives, officers, deputies and forensic technicians with the Fayetteville Police Department, the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office and a forensic archaeologist invested an enormous amount of time and resources during the two days investigators and personnel remained at the site," Medlock said in a letter to WRAL News. "Investigators recovered enough evidence to warrant a charge of 1st Degree Murder against the suspect. In every case, the Fayetteville Police Department strives to return a victim to their family in a fashion that they remember their loved one."

Henson was so grateful to Marshburn that she gave him her daughter's dog tags as a show of appreciation.

Marshburn said he's always felt a personal mission to bring Bordeaux home, and he said he hopes his latest discovery will accomplish that goal.