North Carolina man has been missing since 2011. His sister demands answers and justice.

For nine years, Shelia Moses has led a tireless fight to find her big brother, missing since 2011, thought to be killed and hidden somewhere in the vast farmland around Northampton County.

Nine years ago, another brother called her, telling her that Daniel Moses’ house was on fire. With the blaze extinguished, investigators found the 59-year-old man’s car parked in the yard and his barbecue tools out on the grill. His air-conditioner had been running.

But no Daniel.

Daniel Moses, a retired truck driver, had no known enemies and only one minor criminal offense. People knew him best as “The Barbecue Man” for the homemade chicken he delivered. A day after the fire, his dog trotted home without him.

To Shelia Moses’ thinking, the case got soft-pedaled from the beginning.

The sheriff’s department called it a missing persons case, not a kidnapping or homicide, and the State Bureau of Investigation did not join the missing person case until eight months later — only after she wrote to then-Gov. Beverly Perdue.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has not taken up the case, despite a letter from U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield asking for help and a follow-up letter from Shelia Moses.

In the days before he disappeared, Daniel Moses’ phone pinged a cell phone tower in Virginia, which the missing man’s sister considers enough evidence to make an interstate case. But in 2013, the FBI told her it could find no violation of federal law, giving it no jurisdiction.

But on Tuesday, July 21, the search for answers resumed in a big way. An eight-person search team, including SBI agents and sheriff’s deputies, combed the farm across from Daniel Moses’ old house, covering 65 acres with a cadaver dog. They searched a 38-foot well with an underwater camera.

They found nothing, but Shelia Moses takes some small satisfaction that the search is still alive — largely thanks to her persistence.

“This is, to me, the biggest effort so far,” she said, as the team fanned out across the corn fields and woods. “How long? I promised my mother I’d find Daniel in my lifetime. The fact they don’t look for black people in America is a pandemic.

“I’m not critical of the police, but I’m being critical of the police,” she continued. “You can’t tell me that if Daniel was a white man this would not be a federal case.”

Ongoing cold case

The ongoing case stings Shelia Moses on several levels.

She grew up one of 10 children on the farmland outside Rich Square, a two-stoplight town 100 miles northeast of Raleigh, which boasts a population of 849. On the rural stretch where some of her family still grow corn, it’s possible to scan from horizon to horizon without seeing another person.

Her big brother Daniel fled the country for New York, and she idolized him. He took her to the movies and to her first Chinese restaurant. She still has the chopsticks.

Then she left Rich Square, too, following her big brother’s path to big cities. She became a writer. In 2000, she co-authored a memoir for Dick Gregory, the comedian and civil rights activist.

Four years later, she wrote the young adult book “The Legend of Buddy Bush,” which is based on her life in Rich Square and was a finalist for the prestigious National Book Award. One character, Coy, is drawn from her memories of Daniel. In the book, Coy moves away to Harlem.

She stood on that family ground last week, watching agents take a machete to the tall undergrowth, and she could see the old silos from the dairy farm that operated next to her childhood home.

“It was a peaceful place,” she said. “Never in a million years did I think my think my brother would come home and something would happen to him.”

Since 2011, she said, she has called various investigators at least once a month.

“If I stop,” she said, “they’ll stop.”

A complicated investigation

Daniel Moses moved home years before his disappearance on June 17, 2011, keeping to himself, grilling his chicken, his back usually hurting bad enough that he wouldn’t answer the door.

But his dog, a mutt he had trained, would growl ferociously at all but a few visitors. On the day Johnny, one of his brothers, visited, he found the dog at home, the cars in the yard and the air-conditioning running, indicating that wherever Daniel went, he did not expect to be gone long.

In the days before he went missing, Daniel Moses had talked of fishing in Virginia, just over the state line. The family tried calling him for days but only reached his voicemail on his phone, Shelia Moses said. Then the phone didn’t pick up at all.

In 2011, Capt. D.H. Harmon of the Northampton Sheriff’s Office told the N&O, “There’s no evidence other than he’s missing and suspicious.”

Shelia Moses wrote to the governor’s office asking that the SBI take up the case, which it did in 2012.

But there have been other factors complicating the case since Daniel Moses was last seen, namely turnover in the law enforcement who were involved with the initial investigation.

In 2013, longtime Northampton Sheriff Wardie Vincent retired after 30 years, according to the Chowan News-Herald.

Two years later, Vincent’s son, a former Northampton deputy, was charged in an undercover drug-trafficking sting that netted 13 active and ex-officers. He is now serving six years in federal prison.

Jack Smith, the current Northampton sheriff, said he understands Shelia Moses’ frustration about the SBI joining the case late. But he cites other complications.

One officer involved in the nine-year-old case has died, he said. Another got fired. Another left the office and moved on.

“We haven’t given up,” he told The N&O. “We’ve gone over ponds and woods, had cadaver dogs and bloodhounds, interviewed I don’t know how many people. Law enforcement can sometimes do but so much but go by what evidence you have.”

Possible clues

Alan Roye was chief of police in nearby Rich Square at the time of Daniel Moses’ disappearance and helped fight the fire at the house. Now a lead investigator with the Northampton sheriff’s office, he believes that the air-conditioner likely sparked the blaze by running for too long.

Investigators sprayed Luminol to find traces of blood and found none, he said. He does not believe any struggle happened inside the house.

“I think if there was a fight, Daniel would have won,” Roye said at the search Tuesday. “I knew Daniel. He was a gentle giant. I would love to have a barbecue sandwich right now. He was a big guy and he was trained (in martial arts), but he was quiet.”

As for FBI involvement, Roye said he would love to see it but expects it would likely take more than the cell phone ping Shelia Moses noticed in her brother’s case file.

A $15,000 reward remains offered for information about Daniel Moses’ case. Contact Sheriff’s Lt. Alan Roye at 252-534-2611 or alan.roye@nhcnc.net.

Shelia Moses has spent years pushing for information not only about her brother, but also others who have vanished from rural Northampton and neighboring Halifax County.

In 2016, she held a rally for 11 families from that sparsely populated region, all awaiting news and feeling abandoned.

“Until Daniel is found, there is no justice,” she said. “Today my satisfaction is that the ball is still rolling. I will never be satisfied until Daniel is found. I will be old and gray. I’m older and definitely some gray, but my cry out is ‘How long, God? How long?’”

This story was originally published July 28, 2020 at 9:57 AM with the headline "North Carolina man has been missing since 2011. His sister demands answers and justice.."