Highway Patrol: Missing Va. woman was not in truck that crashed, burned on I-85

Although the family of a missing woman has said they believe she was killed in a tractor-trailer fire on Interstate 85, a spokesman for the North Carolina State Highway Patrol told WRAL News that after "exhaustive efforts" to look over the crash scene and truck, no evidence has been found to support that claim.

Alyssa Nicole Taylor, 25, was reported missing to the Accomack County (Va.) Sheriff's Office on Sept. 20. Her family told deputies they last heard from her on Sept. 13, when she told her mother that she would be traveling with Daniel Eugene McNeal, 51, of Exmore, Va.

On Sept. 14, a tractor-trailer carrying chicken parts crashed and burned in the southbound lanes of I-85, closing the highway for hours in Orange County.

After that fire, family and friends posted to social media their theory that Taylor had been in the truck.

But the North Carolina State Highway Patrol found only the remains of the driver, who was McNeal, and his dog, the spokesman said.