State boosts reward for information
By John Joyce
Published in News on March 30, 2014 1:50 AM
Gov. Pat McCrory and the Wayne County Sheriff's Office have announced a potential $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in connection with a 2013 double homicide in Mount Olive.
Tyrone Beamon Jr., 27, and Shaundrea Juanette Milhouse, 21, were found dead inside Beamon's home at 638 Waller Road on Nov. 5.
Beamon's son, then 3 years old, and Ms. Milhouse's two children, ages 4 and 1 at the time, were also found in the home unharmed.
Beamon and Ms. Milhouse were discovered by family members who went by the home after not hearing from him for at least a day.
Both victims were found bound in a bathtub with significant injuries to their bodies. Investigators with the Wayne County Sheriff's Office said the bodies had been there a couple days.
Autopsy results on Beamon released in February indicated he died by strangulation.
McCrory announced through his press office Friday the reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case.
That money is in addition to a combined reward of up to $6,000 from the Beamon family and the Wayne County Sheriff's Office, plus the standard reward of up to $1,000 offered by Crime Stoppers for information in any investigation that leads to a felony arrest.
The total potential reward for whomever "blows this case wide open" is $17,000, Maj. Tom Effler said.
The governor's reward is a result of a process started by late Wayne County Sheriff Carey Winders.
Winders died before the proposal was submitted.
Sheriff Larry Pierce, who was nominated by the Wayne County Republican Party and appointed by the Wayne County Board of Commissioners to complete Winders' term, filed the paperwork for the reward with the governor's office March 6, Effler said.
The amount of the reward is based on how much the information supplied by the tipster contributes to the closing of the case with a conviction as determined by the law enforcement agency.
Connie Eason, of the N.C. Attorney General's Office, on behalf of McCrory, said there is no standing fund for the reward money, which is only offered in cold cases where either all leads have dried up or there is a genuine threat to society. The money must be approved by the state after a conviction is secured to pay one or more confidential informants.
"The police chief or sheriff tells the governor who was convicted, who the confidential source was and the amount of money which they feel is deserved by the source," Ms. Eason said.
The director of the State Bureau of Investigation then instructs local agents to look at those potential recipients of the reward to make sure they were not offered plea bargains or had charges against them dismissed in return for their cooperation.
"The state does not reward twice for information," she said.