Episode 7 - Murder Most Fowl

Dog Days of Murder — Episode Summary

When a duck repeatedly disappeared beneath a trailer in Candler, North Carolina, renters eventually followed it underneath the home to see what kept drawing it there.

Hidden beneath the trailer was something investigators had been searching for since 2020: 90-year-old Nellie Sullivan.

As detectives worked to unravel Nellie’s disappearance, the investigation widened into allegations involving fraud, drug charges, animal cruelty, and a disturbing possibility involving the people Nellie had trusted most — including her own granddaughter.

What began as a missing persons case would eventually become a homicide investigation unlike anything investigators in Buncombe County had ever seen.

Sources:

• WRAL News
• WLOS ABC 13
• FOX Carolina
• Law & Crime
• CBS 17
• Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office press releases
• United States Department of Justice records
• Federal court filings
• Social Security fraud case records
• Interviews and statements from neighbors reported by local media outlets

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hey Ayn, we need to get you more food today, don't we? Wait, what is that? What are you holding? Drop it. Drop it. Let me have it. Let me see. Huh. A napkin. Ooh. A used napkin. Gross. No, you can't have it back. Sometimes animals find what humans leave behind. And sometimes they find what humans wish would never be found. This is Dog Days of Murder, where your love of animals meets your fascination with true crime. Hi friends. Welcome back to our show. As always, I'm Paula, your host, and this is my boss, Ayn. Anything you want to say, boss? She would like to know if you have followed us on Instagram yet. You can find us there at Dog Days of Murder. Today's episode is Murder Most Foul. Never underestimate the pitter patter of little webbed feet. Before we begin, a quick note to the listeners. This podcast covers real crimes involving real people and may include themes of violence and loss. Listener discretion is advised. It may also include feathers on your shoes, bird seed all over the floor, or a 4 a.m. wake-up call you didn't request. You have been warned. In the spring of 2022, the people living at a trailer in Candler, North Carolina began noticing something strange about their duck. The bird kept disappearing beneath the home, returning again and again to the same spot underneath the trailer as if something there kept drawing it back. At first, no one thought much of it. Animals wander. They nose into places they shouldn't. But eventually, the duck's persistence became difficult to ignore, and someone finally followed it underneath the trailer on Beady-Eyed Lane. Hidden beneath the home was something that had been missing for more than two years. Narrow roads wind through the trees there, and trailers and small homes sit tucked into the hillsides. It's a kind of place where neighbors notice who comes and goes. They notice unfamiliar vehicles, barking dogs, porch lights left on too late, routines that suddenly stop. Nellie Sullivan had been part of that quiet rhythm for years. She was 90 years old by the time she disappeared in 2020. The people around her described her as kind, generous, and increasingly vulnerable in the years leading up to her disappearance. Neighbor Belinda Moody remembered Nellie as a sweet little old lady who would give you the clothes off of her back if she could. Moody also remembered Nellie making her daughter a Halloween cape out of an old shower curtain she had around the house. It was a small detail, but the kind neighbors remember years later, because it says something simple and human about the person who lived next door. By then, Nellie's health had reportedly begun to decline. According to neighbors, she struggled with dementia and had spent time in a nursing home before eventually returning to live with her granddaughter, Angela Wamsley, and Wamsley's husband, Mark Allen Barnes. At first, nothing about Nellie's disappearance arrived with urgency. There was no statewide headlines, no emergency alerts interrupting television broadcasts, no search parties moving through the woods surrounding the trailer where she lived. Instead, her absence settled over the neighborhood slowly. People simply stopped seeing her. Belinda Moody said that after Nellie returned home from the nursing facility, neighbors no longer saw her outside at all. They brought her back, she said, and then we didn't see her after that. By the fall of 2020, the silence surrounding Nellie Sullivan had started to feel wrong. The routines neighbors once quietly observed had disappeared. Inside the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office, investigators were already beginning to treat the case as something far more troubling than an elderly woman simply wandering away from home. In December of 2020, the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office formally opened an investigation into Nellie Sullivan's disappearance. Detectives began executing multiple search warrants connected to the property where Nellie had been living with Angela Wamsley and Mark Allen Barnes. Investigators seized records and other documents from the trailer. They believed the material could help piece together what had happened to Nellie. In a neighborhood where routines rarely went unnoticed, the sudden increase in law enforcement activity quickly drew attention. Deputies and investigators moved in and out of the property for days. Neighbors watched from nearby homes. Many of them remembered seeing Nellie around the neighborhood. Now they were trying to understand what authorities believed had happened to her. On December 17th, 2020, Barnes and Wamsley were both taken into custody on a series of unrelated criminal charges. The charges began painting an increasingly troubling picture around the home investigators were examining. Wamsley faced charges including misdemeanor animal cruelty, unlawfully reconnecting a utility, abandonment of animals, possession of a Schedule III controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of a synthetic cannabinoid. Barnes faced many of the same charges, along with the additional charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Neighbors described the property itself as increasingly troubled in the months surrounding Nellie's disappearance. One neighbor characterized Barnes and Wamsley as longtime heroin users. Investigators, meanwhile, continued reviewing records, executing warrants, and trying to determine exactly what had happened to Nellie Sullivan. But even as the investigation intensified, detectives were still facing the same central problem that confronts so many missing persons cases. Nellie Sullivan was gone. And there was still no sign of where she might be. As the investigation moved into 2021, the case surrounding Nellie Sullivan's disappearance continued widening in ways that went far beyond a standard missing persons inquiry. What had initially begun as concern over a missing 90-year-old woman was now unfolding alongside drug charges, fraud allegations, animal cruelty charges, and an increasingly intense investigation surrounding the people Nellie had been living with before she vanished. And one of those people, we should remember, was Nellie's very own granddaughter. In March of 2021, Barnes and Wamsley were charged with multiple additional felonies. Those charges included fraud and forgery offenses, trafficking heroin or opium by possession, and transport, and felony conspiracy charges connected to those allegations. Wamsley was also charged with assault with a deadly weapon on a detention officer while being held at the Buncombe County Detention Facility. Investigators were also continuing to examine Nellie Sullivan's financial records and benefits after her disappearance. According to investigators and court filings, Social Security and retirement benefits connected to Nellie continued being collected after neighbors had stopped seeing her. Prescriptions were also still being filled in her name. The financial investigation would eventually expand into a separate federal case. Prosecutors alleged that Barnes fraudulently collected approximately $77,770 in Social Security retirement benefits intended for a deceased beneficiary between 2015 and 2020. According to court records, Barnes used a debit card connected to the beneficiary's account to withdraw money from ATMs in the area. Investigators said he never reported the death to the Social Security Administration. Meanwhile, detectives were still searching for Nellie herself. The investigation had already taken frustrating turns. At one point, Barnes directed investigators to another location where he claimed Nellie's body could be found. Detectives spent days excavating the site before eventually determining it had nothing to do with Nellie Sullivan at all. By the end of 2021, investigators appeared increasingly convinced Nellie Sullivan was no longer alive, even though they still had not found her remains. On December 20th, Barnes was charged with concealing a death. Wamsley received the same charge weeks later. Detectives believed something terrible had happened. They just still could not prove exactly where Nellie Sullivan was. By the spring of 2022, the investigation into Nellie Sullivan's disappearance had already been active for well over a year. Detectives still believed they were investigating a homicide, even though Nellie herself had never been found. Meanwhile, life around the trailer continued moving forward in ordinary ways. New renters had moved into the home Barnes and Wamsley once occupied. Cars moved in and out of the gravel driveway, while laundry hung outside in the yard. Now, most people have dogs running loose around their property. This home had a duck. According to investigators, the duck repeatedly disappeared beneath the trailer. Again and again it returned to the same area underneath the structure. At first, the behavior did not seem particularly unusual. Animals squeezed themselves into strange places all the time. But the duck kept coming back. Eventually, the renters followed it beneath the trailer to see what kept drawing it there. Underneath the structure, hidden from view, they discovered a container concealed beneath the home and contacted authorities. Investigators with the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office responded to the property in Candler. News footage from the scene showed emergency crews working around the trailer while investigators recovered what appeared to be a large container wrapped in plastic from beneath the structure. Inside were decomposing human remains. After more than two years of uncertainty, investigators had finally found Nellie Sullivan. Sergeant Mark Walker later summed up the discovery with one remark that somehow made the entire case even harder to forget. If I could give that duck a medal, he said, I would. Detectives with the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office attended the autopsy after the remains were recovered from beneath the trailer in Candler. Investigators determined the body was that of Nellie Sullivan. According to the Sheriff's Office, findings from the autopsy established probable cause to charge both Mark Allen Barnes and Angela Wamsley with first degree murder. On April 21, 2022, just one week after the remains were discovered, the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office formally announced the murder charges against the couple. By that point, the investigation had already stretched across more than a year. It had begun with the quiet disappearance of a 90-year-old woman and ended beneath a trailer and candler. Captain Angie Tullis with the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office said investigators had remained focused on locating Nellie from the very beginning. Since the beginning of this investigation, we have sought to locate Ms. Sullivan's remains, afford her the respect she deserved, and restore dignity to the life she once lived, Tullis said. We are dedicated to utilizing all available science, technology, and investigative skills necessary for justice to be served in this case. Even after the murder charges were filed, however, the legal case continued evolving. Angela Wamsley eventually reached a plea agreement in which the first degree murder charge against her was dismissed and reduced to concealing a death. She was later released on probation. Mark Allen Barnes remained in custody as the case continued, moving through the courts. In February of 2025, Barnes pleaded guilty in the separate federal Social Security fraud case connected to the investigation. On August 28, 2025, he was sentenced to 16 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release. As of that sentencing, Barnes remained in custody awaiting trial for Nellie Sullivan's murder. For more than two years, Nellie Sullivan's disappearance lingered quietly over the community in Candler. Neighbors stopped seeing her. Investigators kept searching for her. And somewhere beneath the trailer where she had once lived, the answers remained hidden the entire time. In the end, those answers came from a duck that refused to stop returning to the same spot underneath the home. It's the kind of detail that almost sounds fictional when repeated out loud. A duck wandering beneath a trailer, a hidden container wrapped in plastic, a missing woman finally found after years of uncertainty. But beneath the strange circumstances was something much more familiar to investigators. The quiet disappearance of a vulnerable elderly woman whose absence gradually became impossible to ignore. By the time Nellie Sullivan was finally recovered, investigators had spent years trying to piece together what had happened to her and where she had gone. And in the end, after all the search warrants, interviews, false leads, criminal charges, and years without answers, Nellie Sullivan was finally brought home with the dignity investigators said she deserved. If you suspect an elderly person is being neglected, abused, financially exploited, or has suddenly disappeared from routines that once seemed consistent, trust your instincts and say something. To report suspected elder abuse or to find help for an older adult, contact Adult Protective Services in your area or visit the Department of Justice Elder Justice Initiative at justice.gov backslash elder justice. You can also contact the Elder Care Locator at 1-800-677-1116. Sometimes concern from neighbors, friends, or family members is the very thing that starts the search for answers. Oh my friends, this has been the sad story of Nellie Sullivan, but it's also the story of the duck that revealed long-kept secrets. So, are you enjoying the show? If you are, please consider rating. By the way, five stars make Ayn very happy. And please leave a review. We read and appreciate every single one. Don't forget to follow so you don't miss an episode. If you have a case suggestion or just want to say hi, you can send a DM to Dog Days of Murder on Instagram or email us at dogdaysofmurder at gmail.com. Dog Days of Murder is a fully listener-supported podcast. If you'd like to buy me a coffee or if you'd like to buy a pub cup for Ayn, you can find us at buymeacoffee.com. Links to the Instagram, the Buy Me a Coffee, and sources for this episode can be found in the show notes. And to everyone listening, thank you so very much. Dog Days of Murder is an angry hamster production, hosted and produced by me, Paula Quintana, and of course, Ayn. Tune in next Monday for what was in the drawer. Let me tell you it was more valuable than shirts and socks. Until then, Ayn, grab your leaf.