12 years after NC ‘Barbecue Man’ went missing, his sister is determined to find answers
A grim anniversary passed in Rich Square this month as Daniel Moses, the 59-year-old retiree known as “The Barbecue Man,” remained missing from his hometown and presumed murdered after 12 years.
The case has thwarted investigators since 2011, when his small wooden house caught fire and burned to a charred wreck, but not completely to the ground. Investigators found his car in the yard, his barbecue tools out on the grill and his air-conditioner running. A day after the fire, his dog trotted home without him.
His sister, author Shelia Moses, has persisted in a lonely crusade, pushing for answers and justice in rural Northampton County just east of Interstate 95, where some of her large family still lives.
She has single-handedly kept the case from going cold, highlighting the high number of Black missing persons cases in a county with a low population. She notes this year that a new agent from the State Bureau of Investigation has been assigned to the case.
Last year, the case took a fresh turn when a witness told investigators she saw a leg poking out from the trunk of a car near Daniel Moses’ house, wearing the same kind of tube sock he liked to wear on his bike.
Then in April, dozens of searchers and cadaver dogs turned over ground on a 60-acre tract near his home, where they believed he might have been buried. But a day’s search turned up no evidence.
On the day marking 12 years, Shelia Moses pledged to keep looking.
“I have turned the earth over trying to find answers,” she posted on Facebook Friday. “We now believe we know what happened to Daniel and praying that those responsible will be arrested sooner than later. Until then, I will look for answers until my head is cold. I am not sad! I am determined!”
This story was originally published June 16, 2023 at 10:38 AM.