James Allan Chambers II is still missing, but the man accused of killing him pleaded guilty on Tuesday to his murder.
Howard Adrian Ashleman was sentenced in Cumberland County Superior Court on Tuesday to at least 15 years, six months, but no more than 19 years and eight months, for shooting Chambers to death in August 2014. He had been arrested just eight days prior.
The story of the murder, the years-long investigation and Ashleman’s ultimate arrest has many twists and turns. These include a long-missing man, repeated efforts to dispose of the body, a religious experience, a guilty conscience and more than a year of secret plea-bargain negotiations from Fayetteville to Florida to try to get Ashleman to surrender.
“I can say with certainty that Ashleman was the prime suspect from the beginning,” Cumberland District Attorney Billy West said on Tuesday. But law enforcement had only tenuous evidence, he said.
Although the case is closed and Ashleman is entering the prison system, authorities are still searching for Chambers’ body in eastern North Carolina so Chambers’ family can bury him. Ashleman told authorities he dumped the body off a bridge, but he isn’t sure where, West said.
Chambers, who was 28, was a civilian construction worker at Fort Bragg. He had worked with Ashleman, West said. And he was last seen alive at his home in Fayetteville on the evening of Aug. 15, 2014 by his former girlfriend, prosecutor Robby Hicks said.
Ashleman was there, and the former girlfriend thought Ashleman was going to drive Chambers to a weekend lifeguard job at a lake out of town, Hicks said.
There had been ongoing animosity between the men, West said. The reason is unclear, but “apparently it had gotten close to violent between the two of them before,” he said.
The tension escalated in the truck that evening.
Ashleman’s story is that he stopped his pickup truck, took a gun from the bed and fired into the cab, Hicks said. West said that Ashleman asserted that he intended only to scare Chambers. Yet the bullet struck and killed him.
Ashleman that night visited a marijuana dealer and made incriminating comments about having money from a dead man, West said. The dealer did not report these comments to the police. Investigators found and interviewed him later, West said.
The investigation began after Chambers’ family reported him missing in late August 2014.
Ashleman has told authorities that he at first burned and buried Chambers’ body in the Wade area of Cumberland County. As the investigation continued, he became concerned that it would be found, West said.
So, West said, Ashleman said he dug up the body, dismembered it, put it in plastic garbage bags, drove to a remote bridge over a waterway and dropped it over side.
And because he was afraid that police would find evidence in his pickup truck, West said, Ashleman had it crushed at a salvage yard.
Fayetteville police investigators tracked down the remnants of the truck and recovered a seatbelt, West said. They found no evidence from Chambers on it, he said.
Recorded admission
Ashleman later moved to Florida and got married.
And there, West said, Ashleman “claims to have kind of found religion since this happened” and he wanted to come clean about the homicide.
So Ashleman told his wife about it over several conversations, Hicks said. And she recorded him at least once and told the police in Florida. The police there interviewed Ashleman but did not arrest him, West said.
But Ashleman got a lawyer there and Cumberland County Assistant Public Defender David Smith began representing him here. Negotiations to arrange for Ashleman to surrender and plead guilty began in January 2017, Hicks said.
Law enforcement wasn’t ready to arrest him at the time because the evidence was not strong enough, West said. Instead, Ashleman was expected to surrender a year ago, but the negotiations failed, he said.
Efforts to resolve the case continued last year and into this year. Ashleman drove to North Carolina, ostensibly to surrender, but the negotiations failed again, Hicks said.
Law enforcement decided to bring him in, Hicks said. Ashleman was arrested Feb. 12 in Randolph County on charges of robbery and murder.
Once he was in custody, the plea negotiations continued, Hicks said. He added six months to Ashleman’s sentence for his failure to turn himself in as originally promised, he said.
The case came to a close Tuesday morning with Ashleman’s guilty plea.
Defense lawyer Smith said he could talk little about the case due to attorney-client privilege.
“Let’s suffice it to say that the defendant wanted to give the members of Mr. Chambers’ family some closure,” Smith said. “An opportunity, if they can, to be at peace. And so that’s how this was accomplished.”
Staff writer Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@fayobserver.com and 910-486-3512.
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