WAKE, Va. (WRIC/WVEC) -- Authorities say they have recovered the body of a missing Middlesex County mother, not far from her home.
The Middlesex Sheriff’s Office said the body of 23-year-old Terrilynn St. John was found about one mile from her home on Mill Wharf Road in Wake at about 9 a.m. Thursday.
The sheriff’s office also confirmed that a man, 23-year-old Alvin B. Keyser, was taken into custody on Thursday and later charged with first-degree murder and concealing/altering a dead body. Investigators say more charges are possible.
Keyser is currently being held without bond at the Middle Peninsula Regional Security Center. He was arraigned Friday morning in general district court in New Kent County. Keyser is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on May 21.
Investigators said St. John and Keyser were acquaintances, although the exact nature of their relationship is not yet known.
The Sheriff's Office said that under questioning, Keyser told detectives he had confronted St. John at her home over something she said about him. At some point St. John got into Keyser's van.
Keyser stated that St. John hit him, and he then hit her back and then pushed her out of the van he was driving.
Keyser then allegedly got out of the van, hit St. John, and then choked her until she stopped breathing. Investigators said Keyser then put her body in the van, drove to the woods down the street from her residence and dumped her body.
St. John's body is being taken to the Chief Medical Examiner's Office in Richmond to determine a cause of death.
St. John was reported missing early Tuesday morning after she didn’t show up for work. When deputies with the Middlesex County Sheriff’s Office arrived at her home, the front door was open and St. John’s two young children were alone in the house. They did not appear injured, according to authorities.
Her cellphone was found in the bushes outside her house and a broken necklace was found in the yard of the home. Those items, along with other undisclosed evidence, was collected and sent to the state lab in Richmond.
St. John’s two children are in the custody of her paternal grandfather.
Detectives said Keyser was the individual who led them to St. John's body on Thursday morning.
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