Edgecombe County Serial Killer

Serial Killer

Edgecombe County Serial Killer - The Seven Bridges Killer

Overview

The name "Edgecombe County Serial Killer," also commonly called the "Seven Bridges Killer," refers to a series of murders and disappearances involving women from the Rocky Mount, North Carolina, area. Beginning in the mid-2000s, bodies repeatedly appeared in rural sections of Edgecombe County, particularly around Seven Bridges Road between the communities of Battleboro and Whitakers. Other victims were discovered elsewhere in Rocky Mount and in neighboring Halifax County. The case is unusual because the Edgecombe County Serial Killer has never been conclusively established as a single unidentified offender. Investigators suspected that a number of the deaths were connected, and one man, Antwan Maurice Pittman, eventually became the primary suspect. Pittman was convicted of murdering Taraha Shenice Nicholson, but he was never charged with any of the other deaths. Consequently, the remaining cases should be described as suspected serial-killer cases rather than murders conclusively proved to have been committed by Pittman or by one offender. Most of the women at the center of the investigation were Black women from Rocky Mount. Authorities reported that many had struggled with substance abuse, prostitution, or both, and several of the women knew one another. Their circumstances made investigators increasingly concerned that someone might have been deliberately targeting vulnerable women who could disappear for days or weeks before relatives became alarmed.

The Bodies Around Seven Bridges Road

Seven Bridges Road is a rural road running through northern Edgecombe County between Battleboro and Whitakers. Wooded areas, fields and isolated properties along or near the road became recurring locations in the investigation. Jackie Nikelia Thorpe, Ernestine Battle, Jarniece Latonya Hargrove and Roberta Williams were among the women whose remains were recovered in this general area. Taraha Nicholson was found in another rural location nearby, and investigators eventually conducted extensive searches of the surrounding countryside. By 2009, the repetition had become impossible to dismiss as a series of ordinary unrelated discoveries. Women from the same community, with similar circumstances, were vanishing and later turning up dead in isolated areas within a relatively small geographic region. Local police, the Edgecombe County Sheriff's Office, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and eventually the FBI became involved in determining whether the cases were connected. ...

Confirmed Victims: (9)

Melody Wiggins Age: (29), Date of Death: 2005-05-30

Suspected Victims:

Denise Williams Age: (21), Date of Death: 2003-05

Taraha Shenice Nicholson Age: (28), Date of Death: 2009-02-22

Edgecombe County sheriff debunks serial killer claim - YouTube