LUMBERTON — A badly decomposed body was found this morning on East Eighth Street, two blocks from where the bodies of two women also in advanced states of decomposition were found on April 18.
The body found at 608 E. Eighth St. has only been identified as a female, according to Capt. Terry Parker, of the Lumberton Police Department. The body was found about 10:30 a.m. in bushes behind an abandoned, delapidated one-story, wood-frame home.
The body will be sent to the North Carolina Medical Examiner’s Office for identification and an autopsy.
State Bureau of Investigation agents and Lumberton police at about noon began interviewing those who live in neighboring homes. Erich Hackney, a Lumberton city councilman who is an investigator for the District Attorney’s Office, was also at the scene.
Neighbors say the building has been abandoned for some time but it is regularly used by homeless people to change clothes or for shelter from the rain.
A neighborhood resident who claimed to have come across the body Saturday morning while out with a friend said the body “must have been hidden.”
“We were just out there being curious and I saw what I thought was a female hip,” said a person, who asked not to be identified. “We looked through the bushes, those are a lot of thick bushes, and the body was blown up and swollen.”
The man went on to say that the body appeared to be nude when he saw it and looked to have been positioned as to hide it from sight.
Residents said that there had been a foul odor emanating from behind the house as early as Thursday, but it became much more prevalent Friday afternoon. There was no immediate alarm as the overgrown yard behind the house often plays home to cats and dogs.
“We find kittens back there all the time,” said Dehbora Johns, who live on the 700 block of East Eighth said.
On April 18 a woman’s body was found a couple of blocks away, at 505 Peachtree St., and another in a nearby trash can. It took about 10 days for the North Carolina Medical Examiner’s Office to identify them.
The women were identified as Christina Bennett, 32, of the 1900 block of Eastwood Terrace, and Rhonda Jones, 36, of Troy Drive, both in Lumberton. A determination has not been made on what killed them.
Anyone with information concerning the discovery of any of the bodies should contact Detective Jennifer White or Detective David Williford at 910-671-3845.
