Pet Duck Leads Police To Missing Woman’s Body And Elusive Evidence

A pet duck has become a local hero by helping investigators in North Carolina find a missing woman’s body as well as elusive evidence to bring her killers to justice after two long years. Now, 46-year-old Angela Wamsley and 50-year-old Mark Barnes are behind bars and charged with first-degree murder in the death of Wamsley’s grandmother, Nellie Sullivan.

Buncombe County Sheriff's Office

1. Police don’t yet know how Sullivan died. They also don’t know the exact date she was killed, but they do believe she hasn’t been alive for “multiple years.”
2. Wamsley and Barnes have been in custody since December 2020. That was when the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office opened their investigation into Sullivan’s disappearance. They knew pretty much immediately that the circumstances were “suspicious,” the force said.
3. The couple faced a host of different charges prior to the murder. They were previously charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty, unlawfully reconnecting a utility, animal abandonment, and cannabinoid possession. Barnes was also charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. All of these charges were laid early in the investigation.
4. Police had been searching for Sullivan ever since. The woman, said to be in her 90s, disappeared without a trace. Search warrants were executed at a number of locations and through their investigation, authorities found that Wamsley and Barnes had continued to collect Sullivan’s benefits checks and have her prescriptions filled.
5. Additional charges were laid on the couple in December 2021. “On December 20, 2021, Mr. Barnes was charged with concealing a death and Ms. Wamsley received the same charge on January 7, 2021,” the sheriff’s office’s statement reads. “Wamsley was also charged with assault with a deadly weapon on a Detention Officer at the Buncombe County Detention Facility in January of 2021.” By March 2021, they were also charged with 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.
6. Sullivan’s body was finally found on April 14. While Barnes previously suggested a location where police might look, nothing was there when they checked out the area. However, when a pet duck escaped its owners on April 14, it ran under a trailer in the town of Chandler. That’s when its owners discovered a container holding Sullivan’s body.
7. The duck is considered a local hero now. As Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Mark Walker told WLOS News 13: “If I could give that duck a medal, I would.”