HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. — A judge on Tuesday denied bond for six men accused of kidnapping and killing a Chapel Hill man who was reported missing last month.
Orange County sheriff's investigators found Joshua McCabe Bailey, 20, dead near Jordan Lake in Chatham County Friday night. An autopsy found he had died of a gunshot wound to the head.
Bailey's father reported him missing on Aug. 20, and state authorities issued a Silver Alert – which applies to people suffering from dementia or some other cognitive impairment.
On Monday, authorities arrested eight Chapel Hill-area residents in connection with the case.
Brandon Hamilton Greene, 26, and Ryan Ladar Davis Lee, 20, both of 1103 Sourwood Drive; Jack Johnson II, 19, of 101 Culbreth Drive; Brian Gregory Minton, 18, of 714 Smith Level Road; and Jacob Alexander Maxwell, 18, of Twisted Oak Drive are each charged with one count of first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping.
A sixth man, Matt Johnson, whose age and address were not immediately available, also faces the same charges. Prosecutors said in court Tuesday morning that they believe he was the one who shot and killed Bailey.
Three others are charged with one count of accessory after the fact to first-degree murder: Gregory Lee Minton, 41, and Mishele Slade Minton, 37, both of 714 Smith Level Road; and Chris Manley, 23, of 306 Estes Park Apartments, Apt. J-16, in Carrboro.
They are each being held in the Orange County Jail under a $1 million bond.
Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall said in court that Brian Minton's parents, Gregory Minton and Mishele Minton, assisted in covering up the case. Gregory Minton, he said, gave his son instructions on how to move the body and to cover it up and that Mishele Minton helped buy supplies to move the body.
Mishele Minton's bond was set at $1 million.
Brian Minton was a suspect in a Chapel Hill sexual assault case brought in 2007, though the case was dismissed because of conflicting accounts, Woodall said, declining to elaborate.
According to state Department of Correction records, Brian Minton was also given a suspended sentence for possessing a weapon of mass destruction (a shotgun) and put on four years' probation.
