2 deputies out amid probe of evidence in missing girl case

LUMBERTON, N.C. – One investigator has been fired and another resigned from a North Carolina sheriff’s office following an internal investigation into evidence linking the suspect in a teen girl’s slaying to another attack.

Former Robeson County District Attorney Johnson Britt has said evidence linked the suspect in last year’s death of 13-year-old Hania Aguilar to a 2016 rape. Britt said a DNA match from that rape was given to the sheriff’s office, but deputies apparently didn’t follow up before Aguilar’s disappearance.

The county’s sheriff’s office announced Thursday it had terminated Investigator Darryl McPhatter and accepted the resignation of Maj. Anthony Thompson. They had been suspended following a probe of information from the prosecutor.

An agency spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a message asking what role the two played in the 2016 investigation.