Rocky Mount, N.C. — 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.

View Edgecombe bodies and suspect's homes in a larger map.