{"id":1455785,"date":"2022-04-27T16:44:39","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T20:44:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1455785"},"modified":"2022-04-27T16:44:43","modified_gmt":"2022-04-27T20:44:43","slug":"pet-duck-helps-police-close-2-year-long-missing-persons-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pet-duck-helps-police-close-2-year-long-missing-persons-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"Pet Duck Helps Police Close 2-Year-Long Missing Person\u2019s Investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fpet-duck-helps-police-close-2-year-long-missing-persons-investigation%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1455785&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-1188227540.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>A family\u2019s pet duck helped police locate the body of a woman who has been missing more than two years. (Disclosure: Duck pictured above is\u00a0<em>not<\/em> the hero.)<\/p>\n<p>Nellie Sullivan hadn\u2019t been seen since 2020, and investigators long assumed she had been killed. Her granddaughter, 46-year-old Angela Wamsley, and Wamsley\u2019s husband, 50-year-old Mark Barnes were charged in mid-December 2020 with a slew of charges, including \u201cmisdemeanor animal cruelty, unlawfully reconnecting a utility, animal abandonment and synthetic cannabinoid possession. Barnes was additionally charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon,\u201d People <a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/crime\/pet-duck-helps-police-find-body-woman-vanished-two-charged\/\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>At the time of the couple\u2019s arrest, the Buncombe County Sheriff\u2019s Office began investigating Sullivan\u2019s disappearance, immediately believing the circumstances to be \u201csuspicious,\u201d police told the outlet in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Sgt. Mark Walker, with the Major Case Unit, <a href=\"https:\/\/wlos.com\/news\/local\/pet-duck-leads-to-discovery-of-womans-body-under-home-suspects-charged-with-murder-candler-nellie-sullivan-angela-wamsley-mark-barnes-concealing-death-\">told<\/a> ABC 13 that \u201cIt became pretty apparent almost immediately that Miss Sullivan had disappeared under what can be said suspicious circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Police looked for Sullivan, who was in her 90s at the time of her disappearance, and executed multiple search warrants at different locations, but found nothing. \u201cMark [Barnes] actually sent us on a wild goose chase which resulted in us digging for several days in a site that he knew she was not located at,\u201d Walker told ABC.<\/p>\n<p>During the investigation, they discovered Wamsley and Barnes were allegedly collecting Sullivan\u2019s benefits checks and continuing to fill her prescriptions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn December 20, 2021, Mr. Barnes was charged with concealing a death and Ms. Wamsley received the same charge on January 7, 2021,\u201d the sheriff\u2019s office said in a statement to People. \u201cWamsley was also charged with assault with a deadly weapon on a Detention Officer at the Buncombe County Detention Facility in January of 2021.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Still, police didn\u2019t know <em>where<\/em> Sullivan\u2019s body was, and they wouldn\u2019t learn for several more months. In the meantime, Wamsley and Barnes were charged yet again, this time \u201cwith obtaining a controlled substance by fraud or forgery, trafficking in heroin or opium by possession, trafficking in heroin or opium by transport and felony conspiracy,\u201d People reported.<\/p>\n<p>Barnes then gave investigators a location that authorities believed may be where Sullivan\u2019s remains would be found, but they found nothing during a search, meaning police still couldn\u2019t charge the couple with murder.<\/p>\n<p>On April 14, however, a family\u2019s pet duck would change everything.<\/p>\n<p>The duck, who has not been named in media reports, escaped from its owners in Candler, North Carolina, and ran under a trailer. When its owners tried to retrieve it, they found a container containing Sullivan\u2019s body.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cApparently, the duck ran underneath the trailer at 11 Beady Eyed Lane, and as they were chasing after their pet duck, they ran across the container that Nellie Sullivan was located in,\u201d Walker told ABC. \u201cIf I could give that duck a medal, I would.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The outlet added that authorities believed Sullivan had been killed somewhere else before being placed in the container.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer remains have been sent to an anthropologist for further examination just so we can try to nail down exactly how long she\u2019s been deceased,\u201d Walker told ABC. \u201cWe do know it was multiple years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With Sullivan found, Wamsley and Barnes were formally charged with first-degree murder.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies for breaking news, investigative reporting, sports, podcasts, in-depth analysis, books, and entertainment for a reason: because we believe in what we do. We believe in our country, in the value of truth and the freedom to speak it, and in the right to challenge tyranny wherever we see it. Believe the same? <u><a href=\"https:\/\/utm.io\/ueuP8\">Become a member now and join our mission<\/a><\/u>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A family\u2019s pet duck helped police locate the body of a woman who has been missing more than two years. (Disclosure: Duck pictured above is\u00a0not the hero.)Nellie Sullivan hadn\u2019t been<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":1480726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1455785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1455785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1480726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1455785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1455785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1455785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}