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Two more arrests made after 18-year-old woman charged in Raleigh cemetery murder

The cemetery is at Schenck Memorial Forest off Reedy Creek Road. Officers found a man seriously hurt Friday around 10 p.m.

Posted Updated

By
Amanda Lamb
, WRAL reporter
RALEIGH, N.C. — Two new people have been taken into custody in the murder of a 69-year-old man found dead in a Mount Olivet Cemetery in Raleigh on Friday night.

19-year-old Jonathan Villanueva-Galer is charged in connection with the killing, along with a 16-year-old who is not being named. Both were both arrested after 18-year-old Maria Elizabeth Pena-Echeverria was charged in connection to the death of 69-year-old James Lacy Taylor, who appeared in court on Tuesday.

Villanueva-Galer has an extensive criminal history, all within the past four years.

Jonathan Villanueva-Galer

Raleigh police were called to Schenck Memorial Forest off Reedy Creek Road. Officers found Taylor hurt there around 10 p.m.

Taylor was taken to a local hospital, where he was declared dead.

Witnesses said they saw two men and a woman leave the scene in a lifted pickup truck and a car that appeared to be brown or blue.

"Stuff like this shouldn't happen to nice people," said David Hogue, a friend of the victim. "He is one of the nicest people you would ever meet. It just doesn't the, in the whole thing just doesn't make sense to me. Why, you know, why was he there?"

Raleigh Police were blocking access to State Farm Road, a dark, gravel roadway, just off Reedy Creek Road.

Although not near campus, the forest is managed by NC State University. NCSU sent a WolfAlert to students. Raleigh police and NCSU police were investigating.

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