A murder most fowl: Pet duck helps NC sheriff's office crack missing person's case
Nellie Sullivan, 90 years old from Candler, went missing two years ago without a trace. Until one day, when the owners of the property where she last lived, were directed to her dead body by their pet duck.
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The duck led to a plastic container underneath the trailer on Beady Eyed Lane, where Nellie Sullivan's remains were, according to the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office.
Sullivan's grandchildren, Mark Alan Barnes and Angela Wamsley, were charged last Thursday with first-degree murder after an autopsy.
The two were initially suspected by the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office in December, right after Sullivan was discovered missing. They were taken into custody on Dec. 17, 2020, but were never directly charged in connected to their grandmother's death.
A spokesperson with the sheriff's office said Sullivan's grandchildren continued to collect Social Security benefits, retirement benefits and prescriptions after her death.
Both Wamsley and Barnes are accused of obtaining controlled substances by fraud, trafficking heroin or opium, and hiding Sullivan's body after killing her.
Wamsley was also charged with assault with a deadly weapon on a detention officer while she was in custody in January 2021.
Sullivan would have been 93 years old this month. Her cause of death has not yet been determined, according to investigators.
“Since the beginning of this investigation we have sought to locate Ms. Sullivan’s remains, afford her the respect she deserved, and restore dignity to the life she once lived," said Angie Tullis, captain of the criminal investigation division at the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office.
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