Lori Arrowood Murdered: Body of Soldier's Wife Found, Former Jailer Charged with Killing
SAVANNAH, Ga. (CBS/WTOC) After four days of searching, friends and family of Lori Arrowood made the discovery they had probably been dreading since they reported the young army wife missing, when they found her body Wednesday along a log trail in Long County, Ga., about 60 miles south of Savannah.
Now one of those searchers has been charged with Arrowood's murder.
PICTURES: Lori
Arrowood Missing
Family friend and jailer with the Liberty County Sheriff's Office, Kenneth Lumpkin, was said to have been part of the circle of searchers combing the Fort Stewart army base looking for Arrowood before his arrest, according to CBS affiliate WTOC.
"To come out to the search and rescue and you're responsible for the pain the family is going through and you're the cause of it is beyond me," Arrowood's sister Kris Elliott told the station.
Micah Ward, special agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, would not say how Arrowood was killed or why, and characterized her and Lumpkin as "acquaintances" and said nothing indicated they had a romantic relationship.
Ward said interviews with people close to Arrowood pointed authorities to Lumpkin as a potential suspect, and subsequent interviews with him prompted investigators to search the Arrowood home, where they found evidence that they said linked him to her disappearance and death.
Ward would not say whether Lumpkin had confessed to killing Arrowood, but that interviews with him led them to the location and the body, according to WTOC.
Arrowood's husband, Sgt. Nathon Arrowood, was serving in Iraq with the 4th Infantry Brigade when she went missing. The Army is bringing him back home from overseas, Fort Stewart spokesman Kevin Larson said.
Thursday afternoon Lumpkin faced a judge and was denied bail - at the same time he was served termination papers from Liberty County Jail, where he worked as a corrections officer, WTOC reported.
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