Months after startling discovery of skeletal remains, NC police say missing woman was killed
Skull and bones found in woods near a Mooresville Food Lion at Lake Norman in January have been identified as the remains of a 29-year-old Charlotte woman who has been missing since 2016, Iredell County sheriff’s investigators said.
Anastasia Talisha Meaders, 29, died after being shot in the head, Sheriff Darren Campbell said in a news release Wednesday.
Deputies found the remains scattered in woods near a water tower and the Food Lion off Bridgewater Lane in southern Iredell County, multiple media outlets reported at the time.
A caller reported “stumbling across the remains,” the Mooresville Tribune reported at the time. Bridgewater Lane is off Interstate 77 Mooresville Exit 33.
Sheriff’s investigators searched the woods for two days and sent the numerous bones they found to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem for an autopsy, according to Wednesday’s release. The bones were exposed so long to the weather that the person’s race, age and gender could not be immediately determined, investigators said.
The remains were then sent to North Carolina State University, where a forensic dentist, forensic anthropologist and other experts spent about 10 months processing and examining the bones, Campbell said.
In October, the University of Northern Texas Center for Human Identification notified investigators that DNA from a tooth confirmed the victim was Anastasia Talisha “Star” Meaders, according to the release.
In July 2016, Meaders’ 2007 Impala was found abandoned at Liberty Park in Mooresville, a few miles from Bridgewater Lane, according to the sheriff’s office.
Investigators hope someone will identify the driver who gave Meaders’ killer a ride after leaving the her car in Liberty Park.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office at 704-878-3180 or the homicide hotline at 704-928-9804.