Abby Patterson vanished from the same area where three other women have been found dead since April. Photo / Facebook
Abby Patterson vanished from the same area where three other women have been found dead since April. Photo / Facebook
Something disturbing is happening in the rural North Carolina town of Lumberton, where numerous women have turned up dead or gone missing over the past six months.
The bodies of Christina Bennett, 32, and mother-of-five Rhonda Jones, 36, were found on April 18.
Bennett's badly decomposed remains were discovered inside an abandoned house on East 8th St in east Lumberton and the body of Jones was found stuffed into a nearby rubbish container.
A day later, Jones' friend Megan Oxendine was interviewed about her death by CBS North Carolina, news.com.au reported.
In a shocking twist, Oxendine was found dead three weeks later in a wooded area less than 200m from where the other two women were found. Close friends told ABC11 that the 28-year-old was naked, bound and covered in blood.
Police have not released details on how the women died and have stopped short of linking them to each other and to the disappearances of at least two other women: Abby Patterson, 20, and Cynthia Jacobs, 41.
This is despite evidence all five were known to share a common trait - they struggled with drug addiction.
The reluctance of investigators to connect the cases has raised ire among residents and amateur sleuths, who have set up Facebook forums and blogs where the possibility of a serial killer preying on vulnerable women in the town of 21,000 is being actively discussed.
Megan Oxendine talks after her friend Rhonda Jones was found dead near the remains of Christina Bennett in April. Three weeks later Oxendine's dead body turned up bound and gagged. Photo / CBS
The body of Ms Oxendine's friend, mother-of-five Megan Jones (pictured) was found stuffed into a trash container. Photo / Facebook
In another bizarre twist, the sister-in-law of Cynthia Jacobs, who vanished from Lumberton in July, has claimed she was the last person to see Oxendine before she was found dead herself weeks later.
Terri Rae said she and her husband had offered Jacobs, who went by the nickname "Twister", a room in their home less than two months before she went missing. She had been grateful but politely declined.
But it's the latest disappearance, that of 20-year-old Patterson, that has created the most waves. Young and attractive, Patterson was visiting her mother in Lumberton from Florida, where she had been living for the past three years, when she disappeared.
Abby Patterson vanished less than one km from where three other women were found dead. Photo / Facebook
Like the other women, Patterson had struggled with drug addiction - in her case it was opioids - and had just been released from rehab.
Police say Patterson left her mother Samantha Lovette's home on September 5 and told her she'd be back within the hour.
She was seen stepping into an "old brown Buick driven by a male acquaintance" and has not been seen or heard from since.
Patterson vanished less than 1lm from where Bennett, Oxendine and Jones were found dead.
Her last Facebook post, written on September 4, is a photograph of herself with her mother and grandmother captioned "family is everything".
Lovette has organised searches and vigils to raise awareness about her daughter's case and the other missing women. "It's been two agonising months today since my world has been torn apart," Lovette wrote this morning in heartbreaking Facebook post. "Time has stood still since September 5, 2017, the day you told me you would be back in an hour. Those hours have turned into months. The longest we've ever gone without contact. It's not getting any easier and tears still fall every day. "My promise to you is I will never stop until we find you (pinky promise). I always told you that I didn't like promises cause I never wanted to disappoint anyone, but this I promise you sweet girl. I will continue to look, I will never stop and I will find you somehow." Lovette has also written of keeping her daughter's childhood "blankie" safe until she is found.
It's been two agonizing months today since my world has been torn apart. Time has stood still since September 5, 2017,...
A US$5000 ($7200)reward being offered by the family was increased to $US10,000 this week after a donation from a local chicken-processing factory, according to local newspaper the
"We know she's not out there by choice," Patterson's sister Sandy Bryan told the paper. "She talks to my mom every day, and we haven't heard from her since [she was seen getting into the Buick]."
An FBI spokeswoman confirmed to Fox News that the bureau is assisting local police with the death investigations.
