Mysterious deaths leave dark cloud over one small Virginia town

it's scary that someone in this town is killing our young men murders that happened down there they're never soled everybody that they find down there they find them in the woods they're happy back to back a lot going on in this town but don't nobody talk about it but what if it was your kid what if it was your grandson when you hear something like that in this area you go to nurg here the whole case is bizarre I mean I don't even know where you want to start at you got shot in the back he got dismembered both arms and both legs in a shallow grave he had lie poured on top of him this is probably one of the worst homicides not just in this County but in the state of Virginia what in the world could you do for a person to do that to another person 17 years old he didn't deserve this he was still a kid trying to find his way Antonio Rich his body was actually discovered by a v do crew working in the area this should have not been his final resting place on the side of the road in the bushes like he was nothing he was 19 years old had been shot several times you know already knew when they when I opened the door and knew it was them that it was my son my son did not kill hisself just don't make sense why were there six people at the apartment complex no one asked them questions six people in the house somebody know something why was his pockets rifle through and why would I take my clothes off take my phone and my money and put it somewhere so they got a lot of questions please just send me what happened to my son that's all I want to know I want Justice they got a whole lot of murders down there unsolved they need to act on this now every single case in lunenberg County we reached out to the town manager of Kenbridge Victoria Police the new police chief the mayor of kimbridge we sent multiple requests to the Sheriff's Department all of those organizations basically doing this somebody out there knows something theana is small it's people that knows what happened to my son it's too small not to know we're all family like grew up in cry together all of us I'm sorry this happen to you but I will get Justice for you I just want answers for my son I want answers for my family I wasn't ready for him to go that's my baby my baby there's a dark cloud that's been hovering over this small Virginia Town of about 12,000 people and some folks are terrified at the storm that's Brewing after a child's dismembered body was found along this isolated and narrow [Music] road we have been passing off flyers just trying to get the word out because we really do feel like nothing is being done should no family have to go through this there are thousands of cold cases in Virginia and only 1% ever gets solved I feel like nobody's looking for him like we're the only ones wondering where he's at what happened they feel like their child or their loved ones just become a number and it's been 3 years and we probably will never find them but we would like closer as to what happened to them too often the victims aren't heard their voices aren't [Music] carried these are the faces of loved ones who suffered some of the most violent crimes or disappeared Without a Trace their families are still waiting for answers on this crime Insider reopened the case documentary we focused on three cases all here in lunenberg County three young black males all connected to Center Street and during that investigation we discovered three additional suspicious deaths all six have surprising [Music] connections I miss everything about him everything I miss him a lot it's a struggle on a daytoday basis you know people say take it one day at a time I actually take it one second at a time um cuz I'm forced to just deal with it and I but I still have to go on to get Justice for him and that's a promise I wake up every morning I make sure I tell him I'm sorry that this happened to you but I will get Justice for you well 17-year-old seon Carol went missing November 2nd of 2022 his body found in a shallow grave dismembered about 10 days later actually on this road you see here behind me um both arms and both legs both arms and both legs was dismembered um and he had a lot of chop wounds I guess from them trying to trying to dismember him seion Carol was last seen at his grandmother's house near Center Street he was down there for like four months cuz he had he was in some trouble up here but they found out that he didn't you know wasn't in so they asked me could I take custody of him to keep him from up here and all of this so I agreed with the courts and got him down there and he was doing fine just kept telling him stay from down there hanging with those guys and stuff but uh they had some sort of an argument earlier in the night about jackets that were on the floor then about an hour later he came in there he was like Grandma I'm sorry and he went on outside well he always go outside and walk around the yard smoking his black and M cuz I wouldn't let him smoke in the house this was what time of night when you guys about 9 or 10 so by 1:00 a.m. was he outside or I don't know I went to sleep and when I got up there morning I went back there in the room cuz I usually wake him up to get him ready you know for the meet the van out there and I said well maybe he already you know went out there in the court the van so I didn't think nothing El of it so I went on got ready went to work came back home and I was like he usually be in the house by the time I get off work so I called the school and they said they hadn't seen them grandfather Junius is uh was very involved in seon's life uh they had a very good relationship the boys ran the store said that last time they seen he they seen se he was at the shed with them boys and then the shed burned up come on now something wrong and you could see the black ran the door but the shed won't burnt down it was a fire on the inside of it it kind of ramped up a couple of days later when they put out information online that seon's phone was pinging near a sex offender's house on poror House Road one of the phones that he had was a um iPhone but it didn't have service but it was my oldest son's old iPhone and he did the family iPhone and the phone ping we ping to I went there nobody saw him and then I started to receive messages stating that it was a tier three sex offender that lived at the home so it was really now it's really awkward so when I went there that Friday evening they told me that he wouldn't have a reason to be down there he they don't know him police came up then and told him they had to lead the property um it was about 6 days after we assembled in Looney BG with the search party which was actually election day we began to walk down to the PO House Road location in the midst of us walking we were stopped by an officer that was driving a Dodge Charger a gray one and he introduced himself as officer Barns and I asked him I said he asked me did I need any help um I said well you can help us look for seon so he told me that to come closer to his vehicle and he said I've been looking for seon all day come closer come take a look when I approach the car I seen like brush and dirt and maybe some leaves on his lap and he kind of gave it a little brush like yeah I've been looking for him so me looking at him like well we're walking and we don't look like that so how do you get brush and leaves and dirt on your lap in a car and I said hey I have a question why hasn't anyone went into the home when there's a known sex offender that lives here and you don't need a warrant to go inside of this home and he proceeds to tell me that he's not technically considered a sex offender something about he was just in the a car with someone in the girl and that's how he got the charge but technically he's not considered a sex offender I said well he's registered on the sex offender registry so how do you get registered on the sex offender registry without being considered a sex offender for months after uh seon's body had already been found the sex offender was actually scrubbed from the registry and that mean meaning every time I looked on the sex offender registry for this sex offender he was not there he was not listed at that address that he was listed at or was he in the system at all and we since learned that's not supposed to happen I did go back and forth via email with the state police representative about the sex offender being off the registry and after two or three emails I finally got a response saying it's part of the investigation they can't comment once we arrived to the house as we stated we went up to the door began to knock on the door no one answered the door about maybe 5 minutes later we were greeted by State Police and lunberg police and also Cambridge Police then they asked us to be to get off the property um they told us that they wanted to see everybody who was driving um license and registration because we were a legally parked in the street at the same time it's another lady that lives not too far from that house told us that her daughter was sitting on her back porch and she heard somebody in the wood screaming for help that was and she called the police and they never showed up did y'all hear that one y'all hear about that yeah we also searched her property too but it was just too much land the most mysterious thing in this case is how seon was found uh the chief at that time uh as he told me just had a feeling so I deem it by the grace of God he happened to be uh in the 200 block here of sea way and came upon this area and once again uh further investigation founded it to be a clandestine grave in the dark out of his jurisdiction on a hunch 3:30 in the morning the woods behind me how he find it how did he how did he find it he was the only one out there just remembering some of the conversations that I had when I went there to meet with him and everything every scenario he gave me that could have happened to my son had something to do with woods every scenario he gave me three scenarios one of them including um well he takes medicine so the medicine that he take I went to class and I know that one of the meds that he take he possibly could have went in the woods and committed suicide you telling the mother that's looking for her son that he went in the woods that committed suicide a red flag went up he he resigned in the middle of Investigation in his town in his to that don't look good during the production of this documentary we reached out several times to the former Chief Ben Barnes uh and finally he did get back to us with a statement we sent Ben Barnes a list of about 20 questions he answered maybe two or three of them and the rest he said were part of the state police investigation Mr briquette my resignation from the kimbridge police department on December 31st 2022 was a decision I made several weeks prior to The Disappearance of seon Carroll I chose to participate in the missing person's investigation in spite of my decision to leave the department during the missing person's investigation I searched several areas in the town of kimbridge and lunenberg County during the course of the investigation an anonymous tip was received that led the investigation to the Seaway area in lunenberg County the area was searched by myself and other law enforcement officers without result I believed a further search of the the area was needed during the further search of the area I discovered the location of the remains information about the anonymous tip was previously withheld to protect the tipster and the security of the investigation I will defer any further inquiry you have to the agency investigating the homicide the Virginia State Police happy holidays to you and yours and good luck with your story Ben Barnes the whole damn case is bizarre I mean I don't even know where you want to start at you know uh one thing we learned uh after interviewing grandmother is when I asked her if I was the first media interview she had she goes media interview you're the first interview I've had period it is odd wait wait you've never been interviewed by the the special agent no so you never talked to Kevin George no interviews have been conducted uh in this investigation some individuals have been interviewed more than once uh we've actually had people that have voluntarily provided information so investigators hadn't interrogated her and mind you she is the last person that saw seon alive Brandon Lee he was there when family members were at the church at the corner of Center Street uh it was said that he and cion were pretty good friends but since I've talked to Brandon's mother she just says you know she doesn't know how close they were they were definitely not blood related relatives like we've been told before I spoke with Brandon I think maybe two or three times and his wording and his um body language was just really off to me so I knew that he had known something um and it was almost pretty much like he really wanted to tell me but he didn't and he didn't know how Brandon carried me and my friend and another friend of us down to a cowboy house I told Brandon to tell Cowboy to come I want to talk to him he called cowboy and said the people want some people want to talk to you and he came and I got out and I walked around and I looked I seen some down there were burning they had been burning trash or something he came out went and I opened the hood the thing on the back of the truck and looking there seen the garden tool all the garden tool and Junior says he doesn't think it's a coincidence that after he spoke to cowboy cowboy was shot and according to court documents we obtained we found out that cowboy was ambushed in a trailer he was staying in on busy Lane did Brandon help you guys search or what was his involvement no he wanted to help search but when he seen all of us up there that Saturday when we was getting ready to go do the search before they called tip to the office to the police office he said he he got scared he got parano he want to come up there to help they said too many guys was up there it's been reported that one day after seon's body was found Brandon killed [Music] himself well people living in that area said they heard the scanner and they said someone on the scanner said they were behind Brandon Lee he was running down Center Street and that's when he ran into the woods past his house there and committed suicide we looked for those radio Transmissions but we haven't been able to confirm that actually happened they said he left a note and said that he was going in the woods and go to sleep to protect his mom and dad that's what they say was on the Note but I don't know for sure and if that's possible I don't believe that he willingly committed suicide that's just my take on it I want to talk to the town manager I want to talk to the mayor and ask them what's going on down there they like you said they have a lot of murders down there that haven't been solved the same pattern but this is the kicker y'all why did bonds tell my daughter and and and her aunt that she might have took them pills that he was taking and went in the woods and kill himself red flag flag up my ears up everybody that they find down there they find them in the [Music] [Music] woods yeah this should have not been his final resting place you know thrown on the side of the road in the bushes like he was [Music] nothing it didn't just take a son it took a brother they took a nephew they took a grandchild I just don't understand it he was one of the sweetest kids that I [Music] knew Antonio rich he was 19 years old had been shot several times his body was discovered in a ditch on Moore's ordinary Street in gbridge so Antonio rich and Brandon Lee were cousins and like seon with his grandmother and Brandon Lee of course Rich lived on Center Street at one point in his [Music] life no parents should have to come visit a child here not under the circumstances I found out that Friday they found him on the 15th I found out that Friday the detective and the sheriff came and he knocked on the door you know I already knew when they when I open the door knew it was them that it was my son I can hear myself screaming when they told me it was him like I can my neighbors on the other Street heard me screaming Sheriff toson give me his condolences and he said I'm so sorry but it was Antonio he said and I couldn't tell you he said because he didn't have a positive ID on him he said so we had to send him off to the medical exam to get a positive ID that was the only time that I talked to the sheriff department cuz of course the detective that was there was from the state troopers when we asked agent George specifically about this case he said he didn't have permission of the family to talk about it from what I was so five gunshot wounds he died from the gunshot wounds I'm assuming the Torso because they had them wrapped up in plastic and I know my son hand his right hand was smashed you can tell that he fought back he had a scratch Mark and I think like a little chunk of his ear was [Music] gone and when you think it's a small town you would think that the case would have got solve a little bit faster cuz it's somebody that knows my child personally I don't think it was a stranger to him I think it was somebody that he knew so during the Antonio Rich investigation we realized that some of the names from the seon Carroll case that circle of friends they were also coming up in Antonio's case so I asked special agent Kevin George with the state police if he believed these two cases were connected the 2020 homicide that I'm investigating in the 2022 homicide uh involvement seon Carol I I I I have yet to find any connection to those homicides it seemed like the police don't care enough because every time you hear somebody make a comment and they keep making a comment oh it's drugs it's drugs drugs is not the root of every problem in this small town have you come across anything like a a drug Nexus or you know we always ask for motives I can't say that I found a Nexus that I can corroborate as a motive for this for this homicide times I just think you know was he dead when they dropped him off was he suffering you know if somebody would have found him in time could they have saved them somebody out there knows something I understand that people don't want to go to the police but I'm his mother comes to me I just want to know why and I want to know who somebody deserves to be behind bars for us he had so much life left in him and and I'll don't never know I'll don't never know what would what would have became of his life and I have to live with [Music] that Center Street was just a love little spot we we call it the bottom You Came From The Bottom then we at the top it's just like it was just so so calm and cool down there like growing up as a kid my mom house right here cousin house my other cousin house Aunt house great aunt uncle whatever we was doing as kids it won't never like dangerous or we had to look over our shoulder or Scare anything it was just so like it was it was a good Community I just feel like it's just it's a ghost CL it's like a sad for my brother for my cousin Brandon cousin tone my pet just feel [Music] like ain't going to be the same that no more Caron Craig lost his life in Victoria Virginia not too far from here September 24th of 2023 want request an air for suicide called the subject is breathing shot in the head if pressure now the 911 call for Carlton Craig came in as a suicide but when deputies arrived on scene they had six people inside the apartment and of course Carlton was dead and someone had apparently rifled through his pockets I had got a phone call at 5:30 that morning from a neighbor that lived under the under the apartment that he was found in from what I got he was fighting in the parking lot so I don't know if he was fighting in the parking lot and he ran in the house he had just got his driver's license but it was nothing seen nothing his wallet cell phone nothing I tried to find me app to track the phone didn't go off anything I try to call it and call it and call it it's just I don't know if he in somebody apartment and they know him and know you and our family and they Proclaim somebody after him why not be like we going to take care of this or help him or we going to help you we going to get you out of here or we going to find out who's after you we call said she went and told the manager at the Village estate that somebody was holding them hostage and shot a young man if somebody holding you hostage somebody else shot besides me ain't it family members telling us when they you know the deputies went to investigate the scene wasn't roped off like normal Major Crimes would be roped off there were people walking in and out of the apartment so if there was any option for tainted evidence it was there because the family said they were walking in out freely I found my son's hoodie at somebody else's house washed soaked and wet when I got it back the same exact Hood he had on when he murdered his yeah when he was supposed to to commit suicide just ruled it as a suicide and cleaned them up well picked them up and put them in a damn body bag excuse my excuse my language and just told everybody let's back to normal blood up in the apartment I had to see my mom clean brother bring off to the floor man it's all right though just really getting to the details there so many facts and pit to the puzzle I just feel like it's not all put together and I want Justice one way or another I just that's why I'm talking and making phone calls and trying to get to the bottom of that way I can help out as best way as possible with this and everything else going on but this right here is my main concern this is my little brother so I feel like I just need a little more help with the sheriff and anybody else that got questions people that was in the apartment people that he called that night people that seen him the night before or prior that night I just want a little more than what I got right now so that's all I'm asking for it'll never be no justice just tell me how could you kill my son he's my son he's my great nephew I got him when he's three and that's where he's been so I said my son he said Mama so he knew his mother but when you raise someone they call you what they call you so I was his mama he could he would help anybody he was a good person he would help anybody I never if I was to pull a trash can out while he's in that house he'd have a fit could cook clean better than I do he had manners he did silly stuff like all young people do when he was younger but he he was a good person he had manners he didn't disrespect anybody that's why I don't understand this Canen yel Lee is also Brandon Lee's cousin uh he went missing April 16th of 2021 he come in the driveway with some girl come up to the house switch clothes left and it's the last time I seen him I did not think that would be the last time I see him but it was we also spoke with his biological mother and that would hurt because I missed so much out of his life and we started getting a relationship together I didn't think that the last time I was here for him for me to come pick him up and that would hurt because I wasn't able to do that when he really needed me the one time that he needed me I couldn't save him because he didn't tell me where he was at 24th of April was my other son's birthday you don't miss calling him they were wear tight was tra's birthday and he would always call him but he didn't then we had a call that on the 28th someone called an ambulance and said he had a seizure in front of the Wedgewood motel but he refused to go to the hospital nobody heard anything since nobody saw him I went to Blackstone I made up fly had those f made up so I cast some flyers went in the motel showed it to them they said they don't know them they never seen it I hung flyers in every pole window they would let me hang them asking people if they seen them did they know all I know is the amulance people say he didn't he did not get on the amulance that's all I know one point during the interview leysa went over some rumors that she had heard what happened to her son they had put him in a wood cheddar I heard that they threw his body in between the creek in between Blackstone and kimridge that he was supposed to be in somebody's trailer I mean the trailers that you drive on the trucks he was supposed to be in one of those those were the rumors that I heard what are you thinking about I just I don't like to S he's putting a shredder and it's a lot it's people that knows what happens it's people that knows what happened to my son because you know they're like throwing [ __ ] and pieces out there the officer came to me and told me that my son was deceased he said I can tell you that your son is deceased and there's two particular people in lunberg county that knows what happens to your son he said I will give you further details when I find out more that was the last time I heard from that officer that was about 2 years ago I don't accept that I never will until I have proof that he's gone I still look for him to come through the door I feel like nobody's looking for him like we the only ones wondering where he's at what happened I don't feel like he just walked off because he would not do that I have always he's been a traveler but he will always let me know where he's at he never miss a birthday he never miss Mother's Day he's going to call me I'm going to know where he's at but I don't and it's just you can't just vanish like that he's I believe he's out there somewhere [Music] my stepson off the W the Banks Jr and I feel like he was just like my son cuz I never had a son of my own and I took him in as as my own son I was the last as was the last one to see him alive and that day that I saw him alive cuz I always pick him up and came the to and bring him back that day he was happier than I ever seen him in my life and all he was talking about doing some work to the house that we had up there where he was living and I told him go ahead up yourself and that's that was the last time I I talked to him we owned a property uh that was formally owned by my granddad and my father uh where we standing there uh my Heritage and this is where I will bone that on this property also you know we down the road from Seaway the whole whole Farm is like 80 something Acres all together I named this road over here see when they Nam the road I told I want to name it see cuz there been a lot going on since we left over here with with it started here and then up there we don't actually know you know what what what all going on and nobody saying nothing he always like to be around a lot of guys and he always like to walk down these Woods where you see behind me and he used to walk through these Woods and we tried to stop him from doing it but he would never do it he loved to walk through the woods and so I know that he had to be down in these Woods or he was going with some guys somewhere uh in my church you got a bunch of hunters and so I called him up and asked them I say uh I want you to go with me down here and we're going to try to find my son cuz I think he in the woods and so in the meantime the other the uh Mo which was the mo family uh that his son said that uh called and said we're not going to wait till you get from work we going to uh go ahead on down there now and they walked down through the woods and they found them hanging up in a tree and so the first thing they done was called the state police and the state police and the sheriff department they came out and uh we never heard nothing about the uh police report or anything we never heard nothing from them and then when we got the uh medical examiner paperback that it was suicide and we never could find out exactly what happened and all and we like to get some closing on it so we'll know for sure that he actually hung himself uh because we don't we we don't know we they just found him down here and look the way things look is a possibility that somebody end up doing it and set it up to make it look like was suicide I mean the other case that the guy over here and this D to us uh they buried them in the ground cut the B up and bured them in the ground you know that have H happen after this right here and so it don't add up that that going happen over there and they going to bring them over on the same property when this will happen over here you know it look like somebody's targeting this area and they using it for cuz I think and they think they can get away that way you know they putting it in the same area on the same part of the land and you know it could be some connection there somewhere the sad truth is that victims of crime don't have power and they don't have influence our criminal justice system is set up now providing more rights and protections and services to the defendants than to the [Music] victims they aren't aware of what services they provide they aren't aware that it is in our state's code it is part of our laws that victims get these Services no they don't have anything like that around here only place you can go is to the police and they could caress when we don't have enough Advocates crime rates search people aren't going to reach out for help when they know it's not there there's no cry that is quite like the anguish of a cry of of a mother that has lost a child they lose the loved one and then sudden lady feel like their child uh that had brought so much joy to their life that has been ripped from them it's just a number and it's just a statistic that is not just a number to that Mom or that Dad they didn't just take a son they took a brother they took a nephew they took a grandchild we have an entire division in our office we actually helped create it called special investigation in cold cases part of the reasons why I even ran for this job that felt like who needed to be the voice for the victims sometime you just feel so frustrated that you feel like you're not being heard and quite frankly I feel like I'm not being heard when I ask them about Kenya it's like nobody cares but us we've actually asked for expansive authority to be able to go into some of these localities well it seems like the attorney general has tried before to get legislation passed so on some of these cases that are in the outlying areas where they don't have the resources that like a Richmond city or Petersburg City has well then the the the Attorney General can step in and help uh bridge that Gap and help solve some of these cases uh so far it's gotten out of the Virginia house but keeps dying in the state senate but it seems like the the state senate would there is a need for this I mean obviously there are cases that are backlogged and aren't going anywhere because people don't want to play ball uh I have a sneaky suspicion that unfortunately partisan politics may have something to do with this I think they do not want but that's not what this is this is this is families I agree with you this is about victims is being a second chance for those victims giving a voice for them when they feel like they have no voice but right now unfortunately this legislation keeps getting sty made in the general assembly Michael folks is running for uh Sheriff here he is a deputy from Prince Edward County as a neighboring County uh election night I know that I was watching this election because there's been a lot of talk as we've done these stories here in lunenberg about law enforcement and election night when I went to bed folks was up by 120 some odd votes uh the next day he was down by 24 votes a platform that I had was during my campaign was a importance of a 24-hour coverage you know we have to think about when a lot of these shootings and homicides are happening they're happening be uh after 12:00 midnight from 12:00 you know at midnight from 8:00 in the morning there is no deputies whatsoever on the road they're on call for 8 hours so we have a 8 hours that the county is not safe so I called some my law enforcement sources that I trust in Sheriff's departments and police departments and ask them hey man have you ever heard of such a thing and some of them actually had heard of it because of a Manpower issue but I don't know what Lunen BG's numbers are as far as deputies on staff it's up to the sheriff the sheriff makes those hours if he says they don't work from 12:00 to 8: they're on on call status that's that's what it is I think where some of the problem lies in this jurisdiction is these cases are punted from one investigating agency to another investigating Agency on several occasions the can has been kicked down the road it starts with kimbridge police and then it goes to State Police they ask lunenberg to get involved lunenberg says no it has to be a state police all of that leaving behind a trail of frustration for these families because a lot of them feel like they're being victimized all over again because no one's paying attention or listening to what they're saying about their loved one Victoria and kimri cuz his murder happened in kimbridge and Victoria so lunberg being the county I feel like they need to come together and do whatever they got to do but they ain't doing they Ain find nothing they didn't communicate with us at all if it were up to me we would add teeth to the victim's Bill of Rights in Virginia right now there's nothing stopping anyone from law enforcement prosecutor judges even Advocates from violating a victim's [Music] rights I just want answers I I really do want answers and I'm going to continue keeping his name alive until I get Justice and after Justice I'm going keep his name alive because Justice will be served it's very overwhelming um but I won't stop one thing for sure whoever did it God going to take care of that so they say what happens in a small town stays in a small town is not really holding true for lunenberg County this is a community crying out for help and as the tips keep rolling in we will update you if you have information can help solve these murders you're asked to call 833 RCF MVA or email tips at reopen thee case.org [Music]

Channel: WTVR CBS 6

Views: 1,948,226

Keywords: Richmond Virginia News, RTCFNVA, Lunenburg, Crime Insider, Reopen the case Foundation, Kenbridge, Virginia, Cion Carroll

Id: x_XNaGIY6YY

Length: 41min 16sec (2476 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 20 2023