Outer Banks man who faked suicide note faces several charges for alleged sexual crimes; questions remain in case

MANTEO — Jackie Ray Price, a 48-year-old Kill Devil Hills man who police believe faked a suicide note and went missing last year, faces secret peeping charges from incidents dating back to September 2022 and spanning over a year, in addition to two indecent exposure charges, according to Dare County criminal complaint records.

Price is currently in Dare County Detention Center under a $405,000 bond, following his Jan. 14 arrest in Winston-Salem.

He awaits mid-February court dates for 16 alleged crimes of a sexual nature plus a misdemeanor charge of making a false report to a police station, according to county records.

Price’s alleged felony and misdemeanor secret peeping incidents span from Sept. 4, 2022, through Sept. 26, 2023, with seven separate incident dates and what appears to be eight different victims listed in county criminal complaint records.

There were seven felony secret peeping charges and eight misdemeanor secret peeping charges listed against Price. However, one of the felony peeping charges, dated April 13, was listed as “disposed” and “never to be served” in that county criminal complaint file, with no explanation.

Additionally, county records show that Price has a felony indecent exposure charge where the victim was younger than 16, which allegedly occurred on April 2, 2023; and a misdemeanor indecent exposure charge from an alleged incident Feb. 22, 2023.

Price also allegedly made a false report to a police station on April 13, according to a county criminal complaint, which did not detail the nature of that report.

Misdemeanor secret peeping involves a person secretly looking into a room occupied by another person, according to North Carolina General Statutes.

The specific felony secret peeping charge for which Price faces multiple counts occurs when “any person who, while secretly peeping into any room, uses any device to create a photographic image of another person in that room for the purpose of arousing or gratifying the sexual desire of any person,” according to state law.

Both secret peeping and indecent exposure are charges that can put people on the Sex Offender Registry, according to Kill Devil Hills Police Capt. John Towler.

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Information disconnect

Kill Devil Hills Police Department information does not line up exactly with the county’s criminal records on Price, for reasons that remain unclear.

Price faces seven charges of felony secret peeping, seven charges of misdemeanor secret peeping and one charge of felony indecent exposure, according to a Jan. 11 Kill Devil Hills police press release.

The release was issued to multiple media outlets following The Virginian-Pilot’s inquiries into the Price case.

Price had been missing since early last May. It appears he left the area immediately following an arrest.

Officers arrested Price at his home in the 600 block of W. Holly Street in Kill Devil Hills on May 1 for making a false report to law enforcement, Towler said in a Jan. 17 email.

Towler did not respond to inquiries as to the nature of the false report.

Autumn Price, who has been separated from Jackie Price for six years, said that one of his co-workers bailed him out of jail following his arrest over falsely reporting his bike as stolen.

The same co-worker was the last to see him on May 9, she said.

As far as Autumn Price knew, her former husband “had a solid routine,” working at the Food Lion in The Shoppes at 10.5 in Nags Head and picking up their two children every weekend.

When she didn’t hear from him, and he didn’t show up to fish with a friend he’d had plans with, she was worried.

A note he left for his roommate instructed the roommate to call Autumn Price, and a suicide note in his room addressed to her suggested he was struggling with mental health issues, she said.

She reported him as missing to police May 11.

Price was last seen May 5 on a bicycle, according to information the police released to news outlets on May 12. “Kill Devil Hills Police Department seeks information on whereabouts of missing man” was the headline of a May 12 article in The Coastland Times.

The public didn’t know at the time that Price was under investigation, nor that police had arrested him at his home just days before he went missing.

At the time, Autumn Price said she didn’t know that either. She went to local cab companies with his photograph, but no one had seen him.

A regular customer from Jackie Price’s work suggested organizing a search party, and Autumn Price agreed.

“He would frequently walk Nags Head Woods with the kids, and he didn’t have a car,” she said. “You can only get so far on a bicycle.”

On May 22, 10 to 15 people showed up and searched the woods for him, she said.

“When the police questioned me, they said, ‘We have him as a suspect for some possible crimes that we can’t tell you, but your kids are safe,’” she recalled.

She had to track down the charges herself.

She opined that the police did “what they thought was the best effort to catch him,” but she still wishes things were handled differently.

She’d shared his relatives’ addresses with police, and she widely shared the police’s missing persons poster that included law enforcement’s phone number, but police “could have found him a lot sooner if y’all had been honest about the charges,” she opined.

“We thought he was dead, then it’s this nightmare,” she said, expressing how difficult it is for their two young children to understand.

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Law enforcement interactions

Officers responded to the report of indecent exposure later tied to Jackie Price at McDonald’s on April 6, according to the Jan. 11 Kill Devil Hills police release.

The county criminal complaint lists April 2 as his felony indecent exposure date, where the victim was a minor under 16. A location is not provided.

“The offender fled the scene prior to the arrival of law enforcement” in both the April 6 incident and in an April 13 report of a “peeping Tom” at the Cavalier By the Sea motel, according to the press release.

In the motel incident later tied to Price, a 60-year-old Sunbury resident reported a prowler to law enforcement around 9:50 p.m., according to Towler.

“His cell phone was seized and seven videos of women inside their hotel rooms at the Cavalier were recovered,” the release said of Price. Four of the victims were women, ages 33 to 63, and one was a 14-year-old girl.

Price reported his bike was stolen on April 14, according to information Towler provided.

Towler declined to provide copies of the police reports related to Price or to answer a question about how officers seized Price’s phone but did not arrest him at that point, given the ongoing investigation.

The Jan. 11 release noted that investigators believed Price left a fake suicide note and asked for the public’s help in locating him.

In response to a query as to why details about Price were not publicly released sooner, Towler responded on Jan. 11: “We’re happy to let him to continue to believe he’s slipped away. Complacency breeds carelessness, carelessness results in capture.”

Three days later, Winston-Salem police officers arrested Price, and in its Jan. 15 release, Kill Devil Hills police thanked the public for its assistance in narrowing down Price’s location to that area.

Winston-Salem police “conducted multiple knock-and-talks, followed up on leads and conducted overnight surveillance on areas where Mr. Price may have been hiding.” Investigators “are confident” the Winston-Salem police officers’ “relentless efforts” led Price to surrender himself on Jan. 14, the release said.

Feb. 13 is Price’s court date for 16 alleged crimes of a sexual nature, according to court records.

Feb. 19 is his court date for a misdemeanor charge of making a false report to a police station on April 13, according to that criminal complaint record.