Cecil Lawrence Chacon Jr. was a well-known community figure in Vance County—vocational coordinator for the county schools, an economics and business instructor at Vance-Granville Community College, an Army Corps of Engineers park ranger and a Boy Scouts volunteer. He was last seen leaving his mother’s home on Nelson Street in the evening of Sunday, June 8, 1992, after declining to stay for the night; he drove off in his 1976 Buick Skylark.

When deputies checked his house the next evening they found signs of a disturbance: an open east-side window, a front window screen on the ground, overturned furniture in a child’s bedroom, dark stains on the carpet and bloody bare footprints revealed by luminol. Chacon’s body was discovered buried in a shallow grave in the backyard about 140 feet from the rear of the house; he had suffered numerous stab wounds. He was 6 feet 4 inches and about 295 pounds, making the burial notable.

Investigators reported an attempted cleanup inside (mopping and vacuuming) and a possible sighting of a Chevrolet Blazer–type vehicle near the home around 10:30 p.m. Monday night that may have been red and black with yellow plates. If anyone has information about this homicide or remembers seeing that vehicle, contact the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation at (800) 334-3000.