When Wilmington investigators went to an undeveloped plot of land in Hampstead on April 29 to search for Shannon Rippy Vannewkirk, a Wilmington woman missing since April 5, they found the body of a missing woman.
But it wasn’t Vannewkirk as investigators originally believed. It was the body of 34-year-old Elisha Tucker, a Leland woman missing since August.
New details about Tucker’s death surfaced last week during a hearing in which District Judge Sandra Ray ruled there was “more than enough probable cause” in the State’s case against 51-year-old James Opelton Bradley, charged with first-degree murder in Vannewkirk’s death.
“We didn’t find the wrong body; we found another body,” District Attorney Ben David said in court Friday.
Before expanding the search to Pender County, teams searched for Vannewkirk in downtown Wilmington, around Greenfield Lake and along the Cape Fear River.
Investigators continue their search for Vannewkirk.
Bradley has not been charged in connection with Tucker’s death though he remains a person of interest in the case, David said.
“This is an unusual position we find ourselves in to have to put this much evidence forward in the first two weeks,” David said. “We welcomed that opportunity. In fact, we think it’s an important step, particularly when the detail came out that it was a different body.”
Wilmington Police Department Detective Cpl. Carlos Lamberty testified that when investigators searched the property on Hoover Road in Hampstead, they found a body buried in a shallow grave, which appeared to be marked by an out-of-place wooden stump.
The dirt in the area of the grave was a different color, and when investigators started digging, the shovel head went all the way into the ground. The recovery team got about “6 to 8 inches deep and hit a black trash bag,” Lamberty said.
Investigators pulled out one bag and kept digging.
“We did a grave search by the numbers,” Lamberty said.
In a second trash bag buried 3 feet in the ground, detectives found the body of a white female. That body, now identified as Tucker, was bound in fetal position with one continuous round of duct tape around her body and wrapped in three black trash bags.
Her death was reportedly due to blunt-force trauma to the head and strangulation, according to a preliminary autopsy.
Tucker was last seen Aug. 21, 2013, near the 1500 block of Dawson Street, according to records with the Wilmington Police Department. Bradley lived in the 700 block of Dawson Street from March 2013 to January 2014, Lamberty said.
David noted the similarities in Tucker’s death and the death of Bradley’s 8-year-old stepdaughter in 1988.
Bradley was convicted of first-degree murder in Cumberland County for the June 9, 1988, murder of 8-year-old Alisa Ivy Gibson. According to a June 1988 Fayetteville Observer article, Cumberland County sheriff’s deputies reported Gibson was beaten and strangled before her body was left in a dumpster and found days later in a landfill.
Bradley, who was 25 at the time of Gibson’s death, was convicted of first-degree murder on Jan. 22, 1990. Bradley was released from prison on Feb. 11, 2013, after serving 23 years of a life sentence.
“We have yet another victim in a place [Bradley] has access to…and it just so happens that Tucker is buried in the same fashion, in trash bags,” David said.
The plot of land is owned by Bradley’s former employer, Steve Mott, and Bradley had access to the land and combinations to the locks, Mott testified Thursday.
“As I indicated in court, this is not the end of the investigation. In many ways it’s only the beginning,” David said. “We still have a lot of work to do with respect to Elisha Tucker’s case. And we…want to expedite testing in that. We have a lot more to do in bringing justice to Shannon Rippy [Vannewkirk’s] case, including trying to locate where she is.
“And so, these officers–who have already worked hundreds of hours–I know are going to continue to put in that work to see that justice is done for both of these women,” David said.
To expedite the investigative process, David asked for an order Friday to allow the State to spend up to $10,000 for private lab testing of Tucker’s body and other evidence if the FBI lab and the State Bureau of Investigation lab are unable to so quickly.
Past coverage:
Judge: ‘More than enough probable cause’ in murder case of missing woman
Wilmington man charged in Vannewkirk murder to appear in court today
Police identify body found in Pender County as missing Leland woman
Body found in Hampstead not Vannewkirk; police open second homicide investigation
Man arrested in Vannewkirk murder convicted of killing 8-year-old stepdaughter in 1988
Body found believed to be that of missing woman; man charged in her death
Wilmington police search for woman last seen in downtown Wilmington
Police search for 34-year-old woman missing since August
Christina Haley is a crime and courts reporter at Port City Daily. Reach her at (910) 772-6337 or [email protected].
