Raleigh, N.C. — Attorneys have filed an appeal for an Edgecombe man convicted in September in the death of a Rocky Mount woman.

It took a jury less than an hour to find Antwan Maurice Pittman guilty of first-degree murder in the strangling death of Tahara Shenice Nicholson.

Nicholson was found dead in some woods 5 miles from Pittman's childhood home on March 7, 2009, two weeks after her father reported her missing.

She is one of nine Rocky Mount women who had been reported missing when their bodies were found over a four-year period across three counties – many of them in locations close to where Pittman had lived at some point in his life. A 10th woman is still missing.

Although he's never been charged, authorities have said that Pittman is a suspect in at least seven of the other cases.

Appellate attorneys are challenging 70 items from Pittman's trial.

Defense attorneys argued that the state's case was weak and that there was no solid evidence linking Pittman to Nicholson's death.

Jurors never heard about Pittman being a suspect in the other women's deaths.