Suspect in missing Fayetteville man's death strikes plea deal

The lone remaining suspect in the death of a Fayetteville man pleaded guilty Thursday to being an accessory in the missing man's murder.

Posted 8:18 p.m. Oct 9, 2020 — Updated 12:26 a.m. Oct 10, 2020

Gilbert Baez

, WRAL Fayetteville reporter

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — The lone remaining suspect in the death of a Fayetteville man pleaded guilty Thursday to being an accessory in the missing man's murder.

Charles Anthony Fuentes, 31, was last seen leaving Izzy’s Sports Bar, at 150 Andrews Road, in the early hours of March 3, 2018. Grainy security video from outside the bar shows a man believed to be Fuentes leaving with two men in a dark-colored 2007 Lexus.

Police identified the two men as Mark Allen Verhasselt, 42, and Ryan Dewain Chavis, 23.

Verhasselt was shot to death outside a Myrtle Beach, S.C., apartment complex four months later.

Even though Fuentes' body has never been found, Chavis was charged with first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and conspiracy to commit first-degree kidnapping.

Prosecutors dropped those charges, however, after Chavis agreed to plead guilty to a charge of accessory after the fact of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to six to eight years in prison.

Cumberland County District Attorney Billy West said he was forced to strike a deal when a key witness refused to testify against Chavis.

"We simply just did not have enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Chavis was involved in the homicidal act," West said, noting that investigators believe Verhasselt actually killed Fuentes.

The plea deal left Fuentes' parents devastated.

"He had written down that he was there, that he hit my son with a bottle of alcohol and shoved him in a cage and ... in a tub to die," Mayra Fuentes said of Chavis.

A witness told police that Anthony Fuentes was beaten to death during a disagreement with Verhasselt and Chavis, and the witness later saw Fuentes' body in a dog crate.

Mayra Fuentes has said investigators told her her son was murdered in an apartment behind some businesses in the 4800 block of Ramsey Street – about a mile from where he was last seen – and thrown in the Cape Fear River.

Police searched the river for his body two years ago but came up empty.

Charles Fuentes, who's a diver, also spent days in the river searching for his son's remains.

"If somebody suddenly gave me some murky information that my son's remains are buried somewhere, I would grab a shovel this time and go searching for my son," he said.

Charles Fuentes said he looked Chavis directly in the eyes when he spoke with him during the sentencing hearing.

"It looked like repentance with an imminent confession," he said when asked what he saw in Chavis' expression. "Like, all of a sudden, he was going to stand up and say, 'This is what happened.'"

With the criminal case in their son's death over, the Fuenteses said they are still looking for closure.

"My closure will be when I get my son. That's all we want," Mayra Fuentes said. "We're Christians. We want our son to give him a burial."

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