Former Fort Bragg soldier arrested in Texas in 2010 Fayetteville slaying
A former Fort Bragg soldier was arrested this week in the 2010 Fayetteville slaying of a sex worker, officials announced Wednesday.
Joshua Aaron Richardson, 41, is charged with first-degree murder in the May 31, 2010, killing of Terrance Omar Plummer Jr., 22, according to the Fayetteville Police Department.
Plummer’s body was found inside a vacant Rhew Street apartment in the Bonnie Doone neighborhood.
Fayetteville police detective Jeff Locklear told The Fayetteville Observer in 2011 that he was overwhelmed by what he saw when he arrived at the scene.
According to the autopsy report, at least 31 wounds were documented by a state medical examiner. That number did not include a "number of predominately shallower cuts" on the back of Plummer's neck or a "number of cuts" on his left forearm, the report said. The worst wounds were to Plummer's chest, the report said, where the weapon penetrated both lungs, causing fatal hemorrhaging.
"In 12 years of law enforcement, this is one of the more brutal murders I've seen," Locklear said at the time.
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According to a news release Wednesday, a number of items of forensic evidence were collected and preserved from the crime scene to be examined or analyzed at a later date.
“The initial investigation in 2010 went unsolved; however, as technology improved, the forensic evidence that was collected at the crime scene identified Joshua Aaron Richardson as the suspect in the murder of Terrance Plummer, Jr.,” the release said.
Richardson, who now lives in Houston, Texas, was arrested there Tuesday in the Fayetteville murder. According to police, at the time of the killing, Richardson was an active-duty soldier stationed at Fort Bragg. He is being held without bail in the Harris County, Texas, jail awaiting extradition, police said.
The release said a number of law enforcement agencies “assisted in the continued pursuit of justice.”
Most recently, the release said, the US Army's Criminal Investigations Division (Fort Bragg), the Wharton County Texas Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigations Division, and the Houston Police Department's Homicide Unit, assisted in the investigation and apprehension of Richardson.
Locklear said in 2011 that Plummer was last seen the morning before his body was found, about a half-mile from the apartment where he died.
"The last person he was seen with was a white male. A soldier is the description given by witnesses, based on the dress, hair and stature," Locklear said. The man was driving a late model silver or gray Volkswagen Beetle convertible, he said.
Anyone with additional information regarding this homicide investigation is asked to contact Detective C. Crews at 910-751-1046 or Crimestoppers at 910-483-TIPS (8477).
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Former Fort Bragg soldier arrested in Texas in 2010 Fayetteville slaying
