Dump dig to check for body of missing teen

Dump dig to check for body of missing teen
Police say sex offender may know more about disappearance
By Matt Lakin
Thursday, June 4, 2009

Five weeks haven't brought an answer in a 19-year-old woman's disappearance.

Newport police hope digging through a landfill this weekend will.

The Morristown dump might hold Megan Maxwell's body, Newport Police Chief Maurice Shults said Wednesday. Investigators are questioning a man they think knows what happened, he said.

"Our first concern right now is the recovery of Megan's body," the chief said. "We're holding out hope she might be alive, but we want to see if she's there."

Police, rescuers, family and friends have searched for Maxwell since the morning of April 26, when an off-duty officer spotted her 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse burning on U.S. Highway 25/70 near a riverbank. She'd talked to a friend that Sunday just before 4:30 a.m., saying she was leaving her father's home on Mineral Street.

Investigators believe Jeffrey Lee Stock, a 41-year-old convicted sex offender from Del Rio, might know more, the chief said. He didn't call Stock a suspect but said Stock knew Maxwell's father and that Stock owned a car towed from the father's house that morning by police.

Stock's now jailed on a charge of violating the state sex offender registry law, the chief said. He's not charged in Maxwell's disappearance.

"We don't think he's being forthcoming with us completely," Shults said.

Stock's father, Terry Stock, said his son and the family have tried to cooperate with police.

"I hope they find this girl and get it resolved, but my son's not a suspect," he said.

Authorities have offered a $10,000 reward for any tips leading to the arrest or conviction of "any person responsible for (Maxwell's) death or disappearance." Five weeks of searching the French Broad River, quarries and acres of surrounding property have proven fruitless, the chief said.

The chief said investigators expect their next stop will be the Tidi Waste Systems landfill in Lowland outside Morristown - the last destination for city trash, including a bin near the father's house that crews emptied the day after Maxwell's disappearance.

"This weekend we'll try to do some excavation there," Shults said. "We know exactly where the spot is, and nothing's being placed on top of it. There could be something there. My hope every day is that we'll find Megan and bring her home to her mama, but we've got to be realistic."