Ruthie Morgan spent some of her last day alive at a local feed store. Store manager Ricky Greene sold Morgan two bags of feed and a pair of work boots.
"(I) loaded her up, told her that I'd see her later, and she pulled out of the parking lot," said Greene.
Greene said that Morgan was driving her pickup truck. She was never seen alive again.
"Never have any idea, really, of that ever happening," said Greene.
Helicopter crews criss-crossed the area on Wednesday, scoping out the area below. Finally, they found the woman's body on her own property.
"Everybody thought the world of her," said Morgan's cousin Worthy Garner. "If she ever had an enemy, there was nobody that (knew) it."
After her body was found, officers on the ground rushed to the scene. Right from the beginning, authorities believed that her death was not an accident or the result of natural causes.
"We're pursuing this as a murder," said Capt. Tim Monroe, of the Moore County Sheriff's Department. "We're treating this as a homicide."
They couldn't find Morgan's pickup truck or suspects, so they hit the streets. Authorities spent Thursday setting up roadblocks around her property, asking residents if they had seen anything suspicious lately. While some officials planned the investigators' next move, others continued to search the area.
Authorities said that they have received preliminary autopsy reports for Morgan, but they are not yet ready to disclose what those revealed. They also declined to speculate on whether her death was the result of a random act of violence or if the suspect and victim knew each other.
Morgan's pickup truck, with North Carolina license plate
SNT-3634
, is still missing. Anyone with information that may help investigators should contact the Moore County Sheriff's Office at
(910) 947-2931
.
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