Photo: Stanly County Sheriff’s Office
The boyfriend of a missing and pregnant North Carolina woman was arrested and charged with allegedly murdering her and her unborn child – even though authorities have yet to find her body, PEOPLE confirms.
Joseph Lee Rhodes, 30, of Albemarle, was arrested on Tuesday and initially charged with possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, jail records show.
On Wednesday, he was charged with first-degree murder and murder of an unborn child in the disappearance and presumed death of Sasha Lee Naylor, 25, of Albemarle, Stanly County Sheriff Jeff Crisco tells PEOPLE.
“Her death has been a big shock to the community,” he says. “We have homicides here, but we don’t have homicides like this.”
She was last seen on August 21, 2018.
“After that, she had no bank transactions and no conversations with family or friends,” the sheriff says.
Naylor was officially declared missing in January, he says.
Joseph Lee Rhodes, 30.Stanly County Sheriff’s Office
On Feb. 21, the North Carolina Center for Missing Personsissued a Silver Alert for her, calling her a missing endangered woman believed to be suffering from dementia or some other cognitive impairment.
“After that, we started getting a lot of information,” Crisco says.
One tip led investigators to Marshville, where Naylor’s car had been found abandoned and burnt in August 2018, just days after she was last seen, he says.
Tips led investigators to talk to Rhodes, Crisco says, adding that those conversations “were just lie after lie.”
Rhodes remains held at the Stanly County Detention Center on a $300,000 bond.
He has not yet entered a plea and it is unclear whether he has retained an attorney who can speak on his behalf.
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Anyone with information about Sasha Lee Naylor should call the Stanly County Sheriff’s Office at 704-986-3700.
source: people.com
