Wadesboro man charged with murder in death of missing woman

WADESBORO — The Wadesboro Police Department has found the body of a woman who was reported missing last week and has arrested the man accused in her death.

Felicia Ann Rollins, 36, of Marshville was found in a wooded area on the Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge on the morning of Sept. 8 after being reported missing on Sept. 5, according to WPD. She was last seen alive at the America’s Best Value Inn. Chief Thedis Spencer said WPD, along with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, conducted an “extensive investigation” to locate her body.

Police have arrested Cedric Deon Sturdivant, 30, of Wadesboro in connection to Rollins’s death. Sturdivant is charged with one felony count each of concealing/failing to report a death and first-degree murder. He is being held at the Anson County Jail without a bond.

WPD has not released details of how Sturdivant allegedly killed Rollins, nor any other information about her death.

Warrants for Sturdivant’s arrest list the dates of each above offense as Sept. 4 for the concealing/failing to report a death charge and Sept. 5 for the murder charge. The warrants for the concealing/failing to report a death charge allege that Sturdivant “did with the intent to conceal the death of a person, Felicia Rollins, fail to notify a law enforcement authority of the death or secretly bury or otherwise secretly dispose of a dead human body knowing or having reason to know the body or human remains are of a person that did not die of natural causes.”

Court records do not provide any further information about the manner in which Sturdivant allegedly killed Rollins.

Sturdivant is scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 14.

Records with the North Carolina Department of Public Safety show that Sturdivant has no prior convictions in the state. He is facing pending charges, including one felony count of larceny by an employee in Union County and a traffic violation for driving with a revoked license in Stanly County. The court dates for these two charges are also Sept. 14.

The Anson County Jail is unable to provide mug shots due to the devastating cyberattack the county government experienced in early May. Major James Paxton said the hack required the reinstallation of the jail’s internal software which subsequently disabled the mug shot system that takes the official mug shot of inmates as they are booked.