Two bodies found in burned building in Columbus County

COLUMBUS COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — The Columbus County Sheriff’s Office says two bodies were found inside a burning building on Monday.

The Sheriff’s Office received a call of a brush fire around 10 p.m. Monday. According to the fire marshal, the fire was in a shed in the 5000 block of Silver Spoon Road outside of Whiteville.

Firefighters and the Sheriff’s Office responded. The bodies were found during the preliminary investigation.

The Sheriff’s Office is working with the State Bureau of Investigation and the District Attorney’s Office. It’s being handled as a criminal investigation.

An autopsy is being performed by the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Raleigh to identify the bodies.

Meanwhile there are questions tonight about whether this is connected to a mother and daughter who went missing from Wilmington over the weekend.

Eva Jo Jones, 60, and her daughter Tiffany Cartwright, 35, have not been heard from since Friday. Their pastor tonight told WWAY investigators in Columbus County told him not to link the disappearance to the bodies found Monday.

WWAY has learned the estranged husband of Jones’s other daughter killed himself yesterday in Horry County. The coroner’s office there told the StarNews Jeffery Harmon committed suicide last night at a home in Surfside Beach.

According to an incident report obtained by WWAY, a witness told investigators Harmon has been upset because his wife had left him. The witness said he got a call from Harmon asking him to come get Harmon’s three children and put them on a plane to Ohio, where his father lives. The witness immediately went to Harmon’s home, where the kids had their clothes packed, so he put them in his car. When he went back in the house and called out to Harmon, he heard a gunshot and called 911. The children are with relatives, according to the report.