Man, Woman Charged in Death of Missing Man

The Wake County Sheriff's Office on Monday charged a 20-year-old Benson man with murder in the death of Jason Jeffreys, 21, and confirmed that a body found Friday night in Rolesville was that of Jeffreys.

Christopher Dale Moss had been taken into custody Saturday on charges that he burned a car to cover up murder evidence and that he misled and lied to detectives.

Jennifer Marie Price, 23, of Wake Forest, was charged with being an accessory after the fact.

Jeffreys was reported missing June 1.

The sheriff's office said its investigation showed Jeffreys had died from blunt-force trauma and had been murdered. The medical examiner's office identified the body from fingerprints, the sheriff's office said.

The car found burned out in the area of 16000 New Light Road, Wake Forest, turned up about 5 a.m. on the day Jeffreys' family reported him missing. He was last seen being dropped off in the Garner Road area.

In a warrant filed Saturday, sheriff's investigators charged Moss with burning the 2005 Ford Focus "to destroy evidence of a homicide." They also charged him with resisting, delaying and obstructing an investigator by "misleading and lying" on Friday.

In papers supporting Moss' $225,000 bond, a handwritten note says the sheriff's and district attorney's offices asked for a high bond because of his "also being a homicide suspect."

Price was both listed as a witness for the car-burning charge against Moss and was arrested herself on a charge of misleading and lying to the same investigator the day Jeffreys disappeared.

Jeffreys' family spent much of Saturday off Rogers Road searching for clues about his disappearance. They said they made a disturbing discovery.

"Someone said he'd found [Jeffreys'] pants hanging in a tree. And then that's when all of us run up here and we saw his hair laying on the ground, strewn everywhere and saw a grave with a branch on top of it," said Judy Jeffreys, a cousin of the missing man.

Family members had accused deputies of doing little to find him. They said they believed the sheriff's office didn't care about him because of his criminal record, which included drug offenses.

Sheriff Donnie Harrison rebutted the accusation.

"If someone's missing - if they're from the slums or the White House, we look just as hard for them," he said.