Detectives with the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office are conducting a death investigation after a body was found in woods off North College Road near Castle Hayne Road.
According to sheriff’s office spokesman Lt. Jerry Brewer, a trucker reported the body to law enforcement at about noon Tuesday. He told officers he’d found the body in a wooded area in the 5200 block of North College Road, just before the roundabout in Castle Hayne.
Brewer said the man’s truck had broken down and he’d pulled over onto a side road off North College Road. The trucker found the body in the woods while relieving himself. The body is about 30 yards into the woods, located on a piece of property marked by a commercial real estate company’s signs.
More than 15 law enforcement vehicles, both marked and unmarked, were on the site Tuesday afternoon. An anthropologist from UNC-Wilmington was called to the site to look at the body, which Brewer said was decomposed. After the anthropologist’s initial examination, Brewer said the body was that of a white man, who had been lying in the woods for about 6 months or more.
Foul play is not suspected in the man’s death at this time, Brewer said on Tuesday afternoon. The body will be transported for autopsy after deputies process the site. Details about the man will be released as information becomes available, he added.
