Police got some unexpected help in cracking the case of missing North Carolina grandmother Nellie Sullivan with a pet duck providing the answer to her disappearance. According to NBC News, the pet bird led police to solve the case of Sullivan, who mysteriously vanished over two years ago.
Officials said that charges have now been filed against the victim's granddaughter, Angela Wamsley, and grandson-in-law, Mark Alan Barnes. According to the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office, both of them were charged with first-degree murder on Thursday in connection with the death of Sullivan.
The sheriff's office said that Sullivan disappeared some time in 2020. Officials stated that Sullivan would be 93 today if she were still alive. Buncombe County sheriff's spokesperson Aaron Sarver told reporters that they do not have a definitive date when Sullivan was killed. Police believe, however, that she has been dead for multiple years.
Wamsley and Barnes charged with murder
Sarver said that both Wamsley and Barnes had been under investigation by police since December 2020 in connection with Sullivan's death. At first, the two of them were arrested on a variety of charges, from drug possession to animal cruelty.
The sheriff's office said that by December 2021, Barnes had been charged with concealing a death. Wamsley received that same charge on January 7, 2021. Investigators searched for the missing Sullivan but failed in their bid to find her.
Buncombe County investigators finally got the breakthrough they were looking for when a pet duck helped them locate the murdered body of Sullivan at a home in Candler on April 14, 2022. According to WLOS, the pet duck dashed under a trailer, leading its owners to discover a container holding a woman's body.
Buncombe County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Mark Walker, who is with the Major Case Unit, said that it became pretty apparent almost immediately that Sullivan had disappeared under what can be said as suspicious circumstances.
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Wamsley and Barnes already in jail when Sullivan's body was found
Walker said Wamsley and Barnes were already in jail at the time Sullivan's body was found. They were previously charged with concealing a death in connection to the case. Sky News reported that the only thing missing in that investigation was Sullivan's body with Walker saying that years of search warrants and state and federal assistance led them nowhere.
According to Walker, suspect Mark Barnes sent police on a wild goose chase which resulted in them digging for several days in a site that he knew Sullivan was not located at. The goose chase eventually ended, and quite fittingly, it was a pet duck who finished it.
Walker said the duck ran underneath the trailer at 11 Beady Eyed Lane, and as the owners were chasing after their pet animal, they ran across the container that Nellie Sullivan was located in. Walker added that if he could give that duck a medal, he would.
