Body found in Raleigh is missing woman; her ex-boyfriend has been charged

A body discovered in Raleigh earlier this month has been identified as Jennifer Ann Arrington, who has been missing since Aug. 12.

The Wake County Medical Examiner’s Office made the determination after the body was found Jan. 6 in the 5100 block of Windmere Chase Drive.

Police did not disclose how Arrington died. Windmere Chase Drive in North Raleigh is about 12 miles from the apartment Arrington shared with the man police think is responsible for her death.

Arrington’s ex-boyfriend, Andrew Eugene Meeks, 42, of Garner, has been charged with her murder and remains in custody, awaiting trial.

Investigators think Arrington, 44, might have been killed the night of Aug. 12. Police searched her apartment in the 1200 block of Schaub Drive in Raleigh three days later and discovered a broken lamp and a large blood stain in the carpet of the master bedroom. A television and computer were missing, and vertical window blinds appeared to have blood on them and were stuffed in a closet, Raleigh police detective Z.A. Morse stated in a search warrant.

Arrington did not contact her family the next day, which was her birthday, and she did not show up for work Aug. 14. Her employer contacted police to report her missing, according to search warrants.

Meeks told a Raleigh police detective that he had moved to Charlotte on Aug. 9, but police say he gave a fake address. A cellphone on which police had reached him was later turned off, according to search warrants.

Investigators spoke to a woman who said Meeks came to her home on Aug. 12 and asked her to provide him with an alibi between 9 and 11 p.m. that night, according to the search warrant made public Friday.

The woman told police that she and Meeks texted several times that evening and that he asked for a ride to her apartment. The woman said she deleted several of the text messages, according to the search warrant.

Investigators obtained search warrants to seize a pair of boots, a lamp shade, earrings, vertical blinds, a bed sheet and a bag containing clothes from Arrington’s apartment. They also obtained a warrant to search digital data from the phone of the woman Meeks spoke with and texted with. A third search warrant allowed police to seize data from a Samsung device Meeks had, and a fourth allowed them to comb through Meeks’ email records, court records show.

Meeks was arrested in Shiloh, Ill., where police stopped him while he was driving Arrington’s Nissan Altima. He was charged with possession of a stolen vehicle on Aug. 29 when he was transported back to Wake County.

He was later charged with first-degree murder, according to records filed with the City-County Bureau of Identification.

This story was originally published January 31, 2018 at 4:46 PM with the headline "Body found in Raleigh is missing woman; her ex-boyfriend has been charged."