‘Barbecue Man’ vanished from rural NC years ago. His sister keeps pushing for answers
Fourteen years ago, a retired truck driver with a reputation for grilling the best home-cooked chicken disappeared from his family’s land in the tiny town of Rich Square — the same day the small house where he lived mysteriously caught fire.
The case offered bizarre details: Daniel Moses left his car in the driveway, his air-conditioner running and his tools on the grill outside, meaning the man known as “The Barbecue Man” wasn’t out delivering his famous chicken.
But after more than a decade, his younger sister Shelia continues to push sheriff’s deputies, the SBI, the FBI and news reporters statewide to keep Daniel’s case alive, refusing to let him disappear into a cold case file.
She believes her brother’s death almost certainly happened on a small bridge nearby in rural swampy Northampton County, and that several people remain alive who know exactly how Moses met his end.
She prays for someone’s conscience to finally nag hard enough.
“My brother was a man of men!” she said Tuesday. “He had a black belt since he was in his early twenties and no one man could beat him or take him against his will. Whatever happened to him was planned and planned by people who knew him and knew him well.”
Small town, few people, fewer leads
Moses’ disappearance is complicated by the terrain where he vanished.
Sitting 100 miles northeast of Raleigh, Northampton County stretches over 536 square miles but is home to only 16,000 people — half the population of Morrisville.
Twice in recent years, teams of volunteers have taken to those dense woods and thick brush with hoes and shovels, looking for a clue but finding none.
The sheriff’s office, to Shelia Moses’ thinking, has nothing close to the resources needed to investigate the case, even with a retired SBI agent working part-time.
In December, Sheriff Jack Smith called finding missing persons — seven at last count, including Moses — his greatest wish for the new year. He inherited the case and has insisted “We haven’t given up.”
“We’re actually working on them, and I would like to solve as many as we can in the year 2025 to bring closure to the missing people’s families as well as the other family victims of homicides in Northampton County,” he told the Daily Herald of Roanoke Rapids. “That’s my wish, that’s my goal and that’s my aim for this year. This agency and I are trying to solve as many problems as we can.
“All the information they provide is confidential,” he continued. “We don’t really need to know what their name is. What we need is the information that they have. That’s what we really need. And we just need help from the public to help solve the cases. That’s what it’s going to take.”
The rural bridge in Northampton County
In 2021, that started happening.
A woman called Shelia Moses from nearby Woodland said she was driving on nearby Cumbo Road when a car in front of her hit a bump going over the bridge. The trunk popped open, showing a dark-skinned man’s leg with a tube sock, which her brother was known to wear.
Moses said she screamed at the time, but she “cannot understand why a woman, who also has children, would keep such a secret for all those years.”
The woman’s schoolmate later came forward and named a suspect, but not enough for an arrest. The caller who reported seeing the leg has since gone quiet, and Moses believes she hoped to collect a $15,000 reward just for offering the tip. She has since stopped cooperating.
All Shelia Moses can do, with her brother still calling from an undiscovered grave, is keep pushing.
This story was originally published June 11, 2025 at 11:39 AM.