Police search warrant says body 'dumped' in East Asheville; police offer no info
ASHEVILLE - A body was “dumped” behind an Asheville car rental business in July, according to a search warrant filed by Asheville police.
But as of Aug. 19, the department has not said whether it believes the death to be a homicide. The Citizen Times asked APD spokesperson Bill Davis and Capt. Joe Silberman, who oversees the criminal investigations division, multiple times about whether they believe foul play was involved, but they have not responded to that question.
The warrant, executed July 7, says that police first investigated when an employee at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car on Tunnel Road found the body of an “unidentified” Black male in the parking lot.
“Officers were unable to find any identification on the body,” the warrant says.
According to a death certificate obtained by the Citizen Times, 54-year-old Keith Mobley from Orangeburg, South Carolina, was the man who died. His cause of death has not yet been identified, according to the death certificate. He was found July 3, it says.
Mobley's father, listed on his death certificate, could not be reached by the Citizen Times.
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An officer “observed a 4-door black or dark-colored sedan pull into the parking lot at approximately 0309 hours earlier that morning of July 3, 2022,” the warrant says. “The surveillance showed at least two unknown people moving about the vehicle in the area of the parking space where the body was dumped.”
The same officer “requested the video footage and provided a link" for a store manager to upload the footage.
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The manager told them a subpoena would be needed for Enterprise to release the video surveillance, according to the warrant.
The brief search warrant says that someone potentially concealed a death, though it does not identify any suspects.
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The search warrant says nothing was seized.
Police have reported 11 homicides in the city so far this year, which does not include Mobley's death and already has surpassed the entire count for last year. There were 10 homicides in Asheville in 2021.
Ryan Oehrli is the breaking news and social justice reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times. Send tips to coehrli@citizentimes.com.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville police search warrant says body dumped behind car rental