NC Couple Charged With Murdering Missing Pregnant Woman, Stuffing Body In Suitcase
A Wendell, North Carolina, couple was arrested Wednesday (Feb. 10) on charges of murdering a pregnant, 28-year-old African-American woman, who went missing on February 4.
According to CBS 17, the Wake County Sheriff’s Office arrested Thomas Clayton Johnson, 37, and Emmalei Grace Trevathan, 24, during a traffic stop in Raleigh. The pair was booked into the Wake County Detention Center. They are being held without bond on charges of murder, murder of an unborn child and concealment of a body. The couple appeared in court on February 11.
Authorities confirmed the dead woman’s identity as 28-year-old Brittany Simone Smith, who was reported missing, just days before she was discovered in a suitcase along the Neuse River.
On Monday morning (February 8), the suitcase was discovered just off of Allen Road. Later, Wake County Sheriff’s deputies executed a search warrant at a home in Wendell, North Carolina, just east of Raleigh.
Dale Williams, a friend of Smith and her boyfriend Cody Page, says deputies were interested in a tent outside of his home where Smith and her boyfriend had been living in for months. He says he allowed the couple to camp on his property because he was unable to shelter them in his home.
It isn’t currently clear what happened between Smith’s disappearance and the discovery of her body on Monday.
