ORANGE COUNTY — Orange County authorities on Tuesday announced a reward for information that would help them identify the remains of a boy found near Mebane almost a decade ago.
The Carol Sund/Carrington Foundation put up a $5,000 reward to help generate leads in the case, Orange County Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass said.
The skeletal remains were found on Sept. 25, 1998, near the Buckhorn Road exit off Interstate 40/85 by a worker mowing under a highway billboard. The billboard was on Industrial Drive, which parallels the southbound lanes of the interstate.
An autopsy determined the remains belonged to a white or Hispanic boy who appeared to be about 10 years old. He was about 4 feet, 11 inches tall and had dark brown hair about 3 to 4 inches long. White boys briefs, Fox Polo-brand tan shorts with a rider-and-horse emblem embroidered on cuff of a leg, white athletic socks and a pair of size 3 black-and-white athletic shoes with the brand “2XS” or “ZXS” were found on the remains.
Authorities said the body could have been under the billboard for up to five months before it was found. Investigators have long suspected foul play in the boy's death and said the boy probably was killed elsewhere and was placed there to hide his death.
If someone dumped the boy's body, investigators said, it's unlikely they stopped along the highway because there's a barrier fence off the side of I-40/85. The person would have had to exit at Buckhorn Road and then turn onto Industrial Drive before carrying the boy 76 feet to the clearing under the billboard, authorities said.
The boy's description has been listed in a national crime database for years, but Pendergrass said his investigators have had no success in determining the boy's identity and have received no reports of missing children that match of his description or time of death.
The Carole Sund/Carrington Foundation was established following the kidnapping and death of Sund, one of three women sightseers found slain near Yosemite National Park in February 1999. While the women were missing, Carole Sund’s parents, Francis and Carole Carrington, posted rewards both for their safe return and for information leading to the whereabouts of their rental car.
The foundation has paid $262,600 in rewards in dozens of cases since then, and the tips the rewards generated helped locate nine missing children and led to the arrests of 37 murder suspects and three kidnapping suspects.
Anyone with information in the case is asked to call Orange County Sheriff's Investigator Tim Horne at 919-644-3050 or 919-942-6300.
If you have any information on the boy's identity, call NC WANTED toll free at 1.866.43.WANTED (1.866.439.2683) or click on "Report a Tip" Your identity can be kept confidential.
