A woman has been accused of stealing $200,000 worth of her friend’s Social Security benefits after said friend’s dismembered body was discovered in a burning bag on the roadside.
Identification of dismembered body in cold case leads to charges
Georgia resident Angel Marie Thompson faces charges related to the years-long concealment of 24-year-old Nicole Alston’s death.
The investigation started in December 2007 when deputies from the Troup County Sheriff’s Office found remains in a “smoldering” black bag on the side of a road. The bag did not contain the corpse’s hands, feet, or head.
Law enforcement suspected the victim was killed elsewhere and dumped in Troup County, according to Sgt. Stewart Smith of the Troup County Sheriff’s Office.
It would take 16 years for Alston’s remains to be identified, which only happened when the Georgia Bureau of Investigation did an audit of open cold cases and sent DNA from the body off to a crime lab.
After the body was determined to belong to Alston on Dec. 13, 2023, authorities learned from her family that she and Thompson left New York together and moved to Atlanta in 2007.
The last time the family had any contact with Alston was that Thanksgiving, which was two weeks before police found the bag of burning remains.
Thompson was suspected for previous crime
After looking into Thompson, they discovered that when the pair moved to Georgia, she was wanted for theft and identity fraud, a criminal behavior she would continue to pursue for years more.
Thompson allegedly assumed Alston’s identity for eight years, collecting her Social Security benefits from 2007 through 2015.
She only stopped when the Social Security Administration required that Alston, who was long dead, requalify to keep receiving payments.
At that point, Thompson went back to her original identity, but had already managed to make off with $200,000 in Alston’s benefits.
Her luck ran out on Aug. 19, when she was arrested for concealing Alston’s death, but has not been charged with her murder, as Troup County is still investigating.
“At this time, we can’t really say 100% if this person was the killer or not,” Sgt. Stewart Smith with the Troup County Sheriff’s Office commented.
“We don’t believe the actual homicide took place in Troup County. We believe it took place somewhere else, and it was just discarded there on the side of the road.”
Man pleads guilty after dismembered body of roommate discovered
Elsewhere, an Arizona man admitted to the gruesome murder of his roommate and former lover, who he dismembered, then spread the remains across various locations.
Timothy J. Sullivan, 66, entered a guilty plea and will face sentencing on Oct. 7, Law & Crime reported.
Sullivan chose to plead guilty to second-degree murder and concealing a body instead of facing a trial for murdering 49-year-old Amy “Ruby” Leagans.
Leagans had relocated from Illinois to Chandler, Arizona, in April 2020, to reinvent her life and get away from the Midwest’s notoriously cold winters.
However, Sullivan, who was both Leagans’ roommate and former lover, ended her life in a horrifying manner that October.
Police reported that Sullivan confessed to the murder. Sullivan claimed that Leagans yelled at him, causing him to “snap” and strangle her to death.
He also had a prior criminal history of violence, including an assault on another woman.
Sullivan initially kept Leagans’ body in their apartment for two days before burying her in the backyard. Fearing discovery, he later dismembered her and disposed of the body parts in different trash cans.
Her torso was found in a desert area, and other remains were located near the Salt River bottom in Phoenix.
In 2023, Sullivan attempted an insanity defense, arguing that a traumatic brain injury made him unaware of his actions when he killed Leagans.
Prosecutors disputed the claim, noting that the condition had not been mentioned previously.
