Halifax County Man Charged in Wife's Murder

Calvin Lee Brinkley is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Viola Brinkley.

Brinkley reported his wife missing last August. In November, her skeletal remains were found in a pond north of Rocky Mount.

Detectives say the SBI has been analyzing evidence for months. They say there is conclusive evidence that Calvin Brinkley murdered his wife, burned and dismembered her body and then dumped the body parts into the pond.

"I didn't think it was nobody else," says Nellie Taylor, the victim's mother.

Taylor says she thought Brinkley was responsible since the investigation began, but it took investigators eight months before they could charge Brinkley with murder.

"This is not an ordinary death," says Lt. J. Wayne Sears with the Rocky Mount Police Department. "This is beyond a tragic death, this is a gruesome death."

Sears says after 29-year-old Viola disappeared in August, detectives found evidence that a murder was committed in the mobile home where she and Calvin lived.

"The evidence in the case, though we cannot be specific about what it is, is conclusive enough and relevant enough to this case that it alone broke this from being a circumstantial case to a case of tangibility, and drew it to conclusions that we got these warrants under," Sears said.

Detectives say to destroy the evidence of the crime, Brinkley cut his wife's body into pieces after he tried to burn her body.

"There was a shoe found at the pond that indicated that the body had been burnt," says Detective Mark Macon with the Halifax County Sheriff's Department.

"If you kill somebody, you shouldn't be walking around free," Taylor said.

Authorities say Calvin Brinkley was a suspect since the initial investigation into his wife's disappearance.

He is being held without bond in the Halifax County jail.