Woman's body found off I-540

The death -- she was a student -- is being treated as a homicide

RALEIGH -- Darin Lee Curtis reported his wife missing less than an hour after her body was discovered Wednesday morning beside Interstate 540 by a passing motorist.

Latrese Matral Curtis, 21, of 1020 Rivershadow Court, Apt. 304, in Raleigh, was a student at N.C. Central University. She was reported missing about 8:30 a.m. to the Durham Police Department.

But Curtis' body already had been found about a mile north of Buffaloe Road and about half a mile north of the Neuse River after a passing motorist alerted law enforcement about 7:30 a.m., Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison said.

Harrison said authorities have ruled out the possibility of the woman being a hit-and-run victim and are treating the case as a homicide. No suspects had been arrested in the case as of late Wednesday.

Harrison was unable to say how long the body had been there. Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Phyllis Stephens said the cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner's office.

Investigators with the City- County Bureau of Identification also were searching for clues at Latrese Curtis' residence in Auston Grove Apartments on New Bern Avenue, and in two abandoned cars found about a half-mile from where the body was discovered.

On Wednesday morning, officers roped off a Honda Civic and a Nissan Sentra, which were parked on a grassy area off the ramp from I-540 to U.S. 401, about half a mile from where the body was found. Stephens declined to say whether one of the vehicles belonged to the dead woman.

What neighbors saw

Neighbor Tiona Washington, 29, said that Latrese Curtis was quiet and mostly kept to herself but that they had talked several times. She said Curtis drove a white Honda Civic.

Washington, a counselor at Wilson Community College, said she had never seen Darin Curtis at the apartment complex, but another neighbor, Tanya Shields, said she saw him almost daily. She said he drove a white Nissan Sentra.

Washington and Shields said Latrese Curtis usually arrived home about 8 p.m. But Shields said that she was in the parking lot working on her car until 9 p.m. Tuesday and that Curtis never appeared.

Darin Curtis, however, did return to the apartment at 8:15 or 8:30 p.m., Shields said. He was carrying a leather briefcase and a shoulder bag the size of a laptop computer, she said.

Both neighbors said they never heard the couple arguing but didn't think they appeared happy.

"I never saw them smiling," Shields said.

N.C. Central responds

Latrese Curtis was a junior business management and administration major who transferred to NCCU last fall after attending Wake Tech and Bennett College in Greensboro, Miji Bell, an NCCU representative, said Wednesday afternoon.

"The entire university community is saddened by the death of this student and we offer sincere condolences to her family at this difficult time," Chancellor Charlie Nelms said in a news release Wednesday afternoon. "The safety and security of our students is of utmost importance," he said, "and we have a number of strategies in place to ensure the safety of our students on campus."

The NCCU news release said no information so far links Curtis' death to the university campus. The school, however, will provide grief counseling.