Ft. Bragg Soldier Faces Kidnapping and Rape Charges

New Bern -- Craven County Sheriff's Office announced Monday Oct 22, 2018 the arrest of a North Carolina soldier, charged with kidnapping and rape of a 12-year-old girl.

Fort Bragg Soldier Charged with Kidnapping 12 Year Old Craven County Girl

On Sunday morning 10/21/2018, the Sheriff’s Office received a call from a citizen living in the Carolina Pines area of Craven County. The caller reported a 12 year old missing from the home. The caller is the grandmother of the victim child. The caller reported getting up on Sunday morning and finding her granddaughter’s window open and a ransom note left on her bed.

The Sheriff’s Office Investigative Division responded to the scene and immediately contacted the SBI Fugitive and Missing Person Task Force and the FBI Cellular Analysis Survey Teams in addition to local Law Enforcement agencies across in several states.

The coordinated effort by these agencies was successful with the location of the missing 12 year old and apprehension of the suspect. The juvenile was reunited with her grandmother on Sunday evening.

Officers located the 12 year old girl in Fayetteville, N.C. in the company of James Murdock Peele, who was arrested and charged with First Degree Kidnapping. Peele will be transported to Craven County today and is facing more charges.

The Sheriff’s Office Investigative Division, SBI, FBI, U.S. Army CID, U.S. Secret Service, the District Attorney’s Office, National Center for Missing Children, DMV, along with multiple local Sheriff’s Offices in North and South Carolina all participated in the search for the juvenile and apprehension of the suspect.

There will be a briefing on this investigation at the Craven County Sheriff’s Office at 1:30 p.m. this afternoon located at 1100 Clarks Road, New Bern, N.C.

NEW BERN, N.C. (AP) — October 22, 2018 updated 4 hours ago Investigators worked quickly to track down a Fort Bragg soldier and a 12-year-old girl he had been communicating with online after she disappeared from her grandmother's home overnight, a North Carolina sheriff said.

The girl's grandmother woke up Sunday morning to discover the girl was gone, but she found a ransom note on the girl's bed and her window open, Craven County Sheriff's Office said in a statement Monday. The girl was found Sunday afternoon at Fort Bragg, more than two hours away by car, with 19-year-old James Peele of Chesterfield, South Carolina, officials said.

Investigators began looking at Peele because the two were Facebook friends, said Capt. John Whitfield. Peele is charged with statutory rape and burglary and will likely face a kidnapping charge, too, Sheriff Jerry Monette said at a news conference. An earlier statement from the sheriff's office said he was charged with kidnapping. No listing could be found for Peele.

Lt. Col. Mike Burns of the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg confirmed that Peele was a private, but didn't have further details.

The ransom note requesting money for her safe return "may have been some camouflage designed to throw authorities off," Monette said.

Monette's office got help from agencies in North and South Carolina, the FBI, U.S. Army CID, Secrete Service and others. He said investigators worked quickly, using cellphone tracking technology to find the girl within seven to eight hours of the time her grandmother reported her disappearance. She was reunited with her grandmother Sunday night.

"My real worry in this kind of case is that once somebody meets a young lady like this, what happens afterward?" Monette said. "If this individual had even suspected that he might be at some point in time discovered what could have happened to this young lady is really scary."

Monette warned parents to monitor their children's online activities.

"We cannot respect our children's privacy, because we live in a different day and time," he said. "There are those out there that will seek to take advantage of our children."

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