Authorities: 24-year-old double murder solved

Monday, November 16, 2009

Tags:

cumberland county, local/state

CUMBERLAND COUNTY (WTVD) -- The Cumberland County Sheriff's Office says it has solved a 24-year-old double murder, and the suspect is being extradited to North Carolina Monday.

Detectives say the suspect, 48-year-old Sean Patrick McDuffy, has been serving time in a Georgia prison for the attempted first-degree murder of his girlfriend by decapitation.

Detectives say McDuffy also is a suspect in the 1985 murders of his brother and sister-in-law.

On February 21, 1985, McDuffy's brother, 24-year-old Kelly McDuffy and Kelly's wife, 20-year-old Bobbie Michelle McDuffie, were found dead in their Fayetteville home on Squirrel Street. Investigators say both victims suffered sharp force trauma to their upper bodies.

Detectives reopened the case in 2007 in an effort to rework cold case files. They say Sean McDuffy lived with the victims at the time of their deaths. After the murders, he began traveling across the Midwest United States.

The trail led detectives to Georgia, where they discovered McDuffy in prison.

He now faces two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Kelly and Bobbie McDuffie. If convicted, he could receive life in prison without parole or the death penalty.