Published: Jan 12, 2013 12:00 AM
Modified: Jan 12, 2013 05:38 PM
PITTSBORO - Chatham County has released another search warrant in the death of Daphne Forster, a Siler City woman whose body was bound and set on fire before being found Oct. 10.
Her mother, Linda Forster, reported her missing the next day.
Brian Keith Whitfield, 24, and Caleb Shaddie Wyland, 25, both of 3400 Carl Durham Road, Chapel Hill, were charged Oct. 23 with first-degree murder in the death of Forster, 38, of 261 Jim Gilliland Road, Siler City.
Investigators searched the suspects’ western Orange County property Oct. 13-14, seizing duct tape, plastic sheeting, cell phones, a lock-blade knife, a double-barrel shotgun, ammunition, a receipt, an empty glove box and carpet, among other items.
Both men are being held without bail in the Chatham County Jail. Their next court date is Jan. 22.
Search warrants say Forster’s body was bound with duct tape and wrapped in clear plastic before being set on fire. A motorist and his wife found her when they stopped on Chicken Bridge Road for what appeared to be a brush fire, Chatham investigators said in the search warrants.
Although Forster’s upper torso and head were charred beyond recognition, she later was identified by five still-visible tattoos, a metal plate in her arm and dental records, a search warrant states.
Verizon cell-phone records show Forster, who had been seeing Whitfield, called him 20 times Oct. 9, the warrant states. She made some calls near the Carolina Brewery in Pittsboro, where she worked, and others, between 11:16 p.m. Oct. 9 and 1:13 a.m. Oct. 10, near Whitfield and Wyland’s home, records show.
On Oct. 22, a Durham police officer found the 1995 blue Chevrolet Cavalier that Forster had been driving at the Super 8 motel in Durham.
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