Deputies find Car of Missing Men

A grim find and the search for two missing men comes to a mysterious halt.

By: Parul Joshi | WNCT
Published: July 31, 2009

The Greene County Sheriff's Office has been looking for brothers James and Antwan Cox since last week.

Yesterday deputies found their car, it had been burned and so were the two bodies inside.

This cell phone tower, just north of Walstonburg was key to finding the vehicle. Sheriff Lemmie Smith says it detected the Cox brothers' cell phone signal which narrowed down their search.

Smith says, "Yesterday, we found out for sure that was the last time the phone had been used in that area. We mapped out a course."

That course took Sheriff Smith to Knox School Road. He says, "I rode by this hog operation and saw the gate was closed but it wasn't locked and rode back there."

What he found was an image he won't forget. Smith says, "The vehicle was very badly burned, nothing but a frame left, it's charred inside, completely burned out even the tires."

Smith says he found two bodies in the Durango, which looks similar to this one; one in the front seat and one in the back. Smith says, "The bodies were burned, unrecognizable and very badly charred." Smith pulled DNA samples from the men's home in Stantonsburg to confirm whether the victims are James and Antwan Cox.

Investigators are treating it like a homicide. The Sheriff says someone could have killed the victims and tried to get rid of the evidence. Meanwhile those who know the Cox brothers fear the worst. Their neighbor Willie Farmer says, "If anybody murdered them, yes I do, yes I do want justice to be served."

The Sheriff's Office is waiting on DNA results. Sheriff Smith says the Cox brothers do not have a violent history. The young men were last seen headed to Falkland last Wednesday to pick up some tires, but never made it back home.