LENOIR COUNTY, N.C. (WITN) – Lenoir County officials say they believe a former boyfriend of a missing teen’s mother is responsible for her disappearance 23 years ago yesterday.
Timeka Pridgen was 16 years old when she was reported missing from her South Street home in La Grange on May 12, 2001.
Eric Moore died on October 4, 2023, and deputies say several weeks before his death he again denied any involvement in the girl’s disappearance.
“While we firmly believe Eric Earl Mercer Moore is the person responsible for Timeka’s disappearance, we continue to search for Timeka,” Lenoir County Sheriff Jackie Rogers said.
Deputies say Pridgen would be 40 years old. Several areas have been searched over the past year and deputies say more searches are planned. They believe her body is somewhere between La Grange and Goldsboro.
Rogers says they hope today’s news conference generates talk in the community and information comes forward on where they could find Pridgen.
“If we had found Timeka, we would have more than likely charged him with her disappearance and depending upon the manner of, if in fact she is dead, the manner of her death, he would have been charged with her murder,” former Sheriff Chris Hill said.
Hill says while there was no physical evidence, it was a circumstantial case tying Moore to Pridgen’s disappearance.
It was in May of 2022 as WITN’s Dave Jordan reported on the case that Pridgen’s mother Cosandra Best told him, “Someone knows something and they’re just refusing to come forward and it’s very difficult.”
She first suspected her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend at the time knew what happened, and that hasn’t changed. Fueling her concerns is the fact that he’s been convicted of multiple sex offenses and kidnapping and served time in prison. But he had consistently said he wasn’t there that day.
Hill says, “We may not never know what his motive is or was. We can only look to his criminal history and get from that some of his proclivities to get an understanding of what his motive might have been.”
Natalia Monae Newkirk says she was in a car with the mother of Moore’s child shortly after Timeka went missing and says she was taken to where Timeka’s body was placed in Goldsboro.
Sheriff Rogers says her tip didn’t pan out, but Newkirk believes floods over the years could be why.
She was at Monday’s news conference and says, “Timeka deserves closure as well as her mother and that’s why I came out here today.”
As Timeka’s mom searches for answers, she is again pleading for anyone with information to come forward, as is Sheriff Rogers, who lives just miles from where Timeka went missing.
Rogers says, “Our children are our lives and I pray for Miss Cosandra every day about trying to locate Timeka.