KNOTTS ISLAND, N.C. (WAVY) — The human skeletal remains of a Virginia Beach man reported missing from Knotts Island last July was found in a drainage canal in Pasquotank County near the Perquimans County line and has been positively identified, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation said Tuesday.
The North Carolina State Crime Laboratory confirmed that the remains belonged to Martrell Andre Lamar, 42, who had been reported missing by the Currituck County Sheriff’s Office and had last been seen July 2 in Knotts Island while walking to a convenience story, according to the sheriff’s office.
A woman accused of helping conceal Lamar’s body, Ashley Walton, 35, of Knotts Island, said that the two had gotten in an argument July 2, and that was the last time she had seen him, though phone records had shown the two of them at the Pungo Ferry Bridge in Virginia Beach.
Walton has been charged with the concealment of a dead body and accessory after the fact to homicide in connection to Lamar’s disappearance.
A hunter found Lamar’s human skeletal remains Dec. 2 in a drainage canal along Sandy Road in Pasquotank County and reported it to the Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Office, the State Bureau of Investigation said.
The remains were excavated and processed with help from the State Bureau of Investigation and the East Carolina University anthropology department.
The preliminary evaluation by the ECU anthropology department determined that the remains belonged to a Black man between the ages of 37 and 72, most likely in his 40s, and standing between 5-foot-6 and 6-feet tall, the State Bureau of Investigation said. Biological samples were sent to the North Carolina State Crime Laboratory in Raleigh, along with comparison samples from family members of missing persons from northeastern North Carolina and southeastern Virginia.
Two people, including Walton, are in custody in Virginia Beach in Lamar’s suspected homicide, according to the State Bureau of Investigation, and the Virginia Beach Police Department is leading the ongoing investigation and any prosecutions related to the case.
Court documents indicated that Walton had been Lamar’s girlfriend.
Anyone with more information on this case is asked to call the Virginia Beach Police Department Detective Bureau at 757-385-4101 or the Crime Line at 1-888-LOCK-U-UP.
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