Officers search area where woman's body discovered

Rocky Mount police on Thursday searched through brush and wooded areas near Melton Drive, the semiresidential area where the body of 33-year-old Elizabeth Jane Smallwood was found in February.

"We haven't found anything," Capt. Laura Fahnestock said. "We're just conducting a search because of today's (weather) conditions. We'll announce if we find something."

Authorities identified Smallwood's body last week, bringing to seven the known number of black Rocky Mount women who have been found dead in wooded and swampy areas in and around the city since 2003. Each of the victims had a history of drug abuse and prostitution.

A task force of federal, state and local investigators has been probing the murders the past several months. Deputies so far have made an arrest in one of the seven deaths.

Of the victims, Smallwood is the only to have been found in the city limits. A prison work crew clearing tree limbs and debris found her remains Feb. 13 off Melton Drive. She had been dead for six months to a year before the body was discovered, according to the autopsy. The cause of death has not been determined.

The Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Chapel Hill identified the body by comparing Smallwood’s medical records to the remains, authorities said.

A crew of about a dozen officers ripped through brush and wooded areas this morning near where Smallwood was found. Much of the area around Melton Drive – federal buyout land following Hurricane Floyd in 1999 – is free from development.

Rumors of a serial killer stalking poor women have spread through East Rocky Mount the past few months, and in June authorities publicly connected the dots between the unsolved murders of Jarniece Hargrove, 31, Taraha Nicholson, 28, Ernestine Battle, 50, Jackie Thorpe, 35, and Melody Wiggins, 29. Responding to a report in the Telegram, Edgecombe County Sheriff James Knight announced last month that 21-year-old Denise Williams’ 2003 murder also is included in the probe.

Authorities are searching for three missing Rocky Mount women as part of the investigation: Yolanda Lancaster, 37, Joyce Renee Durham, 46, and Christine Boone, 43.

Authorities in September arrested Antwan Pittman, 31, and charged him in Nicholson’s murder. Investigators won’t say if they believe the Rocky Mount man might be involved in any of the other deaths.

The case, which grabbed national headlines this summer, has shined light on the city’s fight against the illegal sex and drug trade and has inspired a local coalition of community advocates working to raise awareness about murdered and missing women.

A $20,000 reward is offered to anyone with a tip leading to an arrest in the case. Anyone with information about this case is asked to call Twin County Crime Stoppers at 252-977-1111.

Staff Writer Geoffrey Cooper contributed to this report.