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Autopsy: Chapel Hill man shot execution-style

A Chapel Hill man was shot in the back of the head sometime in late July after being forced to dig his grave, a medical examiner said in an autopsy report released this week.

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Joshua McCabe Bailey - Silver Alert 8/22
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — A Chapel Hill man was shot in the back of the head sometime in late July after being forced to dig his grave, a medical examiner said in an autopsy report released this week.

Authorities found the body of Joshua McCabe Bailey, 20, on Sept. 12 near Jordan Lake in Chatham County. Investigators said they believe he was killed and buried on July 29 in Orange County and that the body was later dug up and moved to Chatham County.

Bailey died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head, according to the autopsy report. He might also have been shot a second time, based on injuries to his ribs and right arm, but the body was too decomposed to determine that definitively, the report said.

"This young man was forced to dig his own grave in Orange County on approximately July 29, 2008. He was then shot

and buried in the grave," Dr. Kevin Greene of the State Medical Examiner's Office wrote in the report.

Six men – Brandon Hamilton Greene, 26; Ryan Ladar Davis Lee, 20; Jack Johnson II, 19; Brian Gregory Minton, 18; Jacob Alexander Maxwell, 18, and Matt Johnson – face first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping charges in Bailey's death.

Three other people – Gregory Lee Minton, 41, Mishele Slade Minton, 37, and Chris Manley, 23 – each face a charge of accessory after the fact to first-degree murder.

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