NC - Hope Webb, 39, stabbed to death, Lenoir, 1 Feb 2015

LENOIR, N.C. — Ten days after a woman died in a stabbing, the Lenoir Police Department has made an arrest. Police arrested Ashley Stewart, 27, 558 NW Creekway Drive, Apt. 3, Lenoir, in connection to the death of 39-year-old Hope Webb. Police said they found Webb dead Feb. 1 with a knife wound in her chest in the parking lot of Creekway Apartments. Police charged the suspect with second-degree murder.

“The investigators have been working on the incident since it occurred, gathering information and confirming information,” Lenoir Police Department Capt. Brent Phelps said. “Ms. Stewart was a person of interest from the very beginning.” The suspect is held in Caldwell County Detention Center with no bond. She has a first appearance in court scheduled for Thursday.

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The apartment complex is located on an isolated stretch of road in Lenoir. The owner, Richard Poarch, said Webb did not live at the apartments...

Tim Webb said he had no idea what his wife was doing at the apartment complex.

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Documents showed someone may have moved Hope Webb’s body after her death. Police executed five search warrants since the homicide...

The court documents released said Hope Webb got into an altercation at the apartments with another woman and man who lived in an apartment. It is the same apartment police searched Sunday. When Channel 9 knocked on the door, the woman who answered the door said she was not involved.

However, police said she admitted to both moving the body and changing her clothes before they arrived Sunday morning.

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According to search warrants, Gary Moore, 65, made an eyewitness statement to police that he saw Webb, Stewart and James Witherspoon Jr., 49, in a physical altercation just before Webb’s death.

Moore said the suspect was traveling back and forth between her apartment and Webb’s vehicle, which was parked in the apartment complex’s parking lot, both before and after the altercation.

Officers found blood evidence under the passenger side interior door handle of Moore’s car, the documents say. They also found blood and hair on the passenger side door jamb and door pocket.

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