Asheville arrest in Gretchen Fleming murder case after remains identified

Preston Pierce was arrested in the Asheville area after a traffic stop, bringing a Buncombe County law-enforcement encounter into a West Virginia murder case that had stalled for more than three years. Pierce, 58, who also used the name Darrell Lott, was taken into custody on May 15 by U.S. Marshals Service agents working with a Carolina regional task force.

The arrest came the same day a Wood County grand jury indicted Pierce on four counts: first-degree murder, felony murder, concealment of a deceased human body and kidnapping. Parkersburg police and local prosecutors said he was expected to be extradited to Wood County, West Virginia, for arraignment in circuit court.

The case centers on Gretchen Fleming, who was 27 when she disappeared in December 2022. Police said Fleming was last seen leaving the My Way Lounge in downtown Parkersburg with Pierce in the early morning hours of Dec. 4, 2022. Investigators identified Pierce quickly as the last person known to have been seen with her, and he remained a person of interest throughout the roughly three-and-a-half-year investigation.

The missing-person case took a major turn in May 2026, when officials said human remains found in September 2025 in Wirt County were positively identified as Fleming through forensic genetic testing by the West Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and Marshall University. One report placed the remains on Courtney Ridge Road, and another said the body was recovered over an embankment there.

For Buncombe County, the arrest showed how a case rooted in Parkersburg and Wirt County could end with an interstate stop in Asheville and a federal-local roundup on North Carolina roads. The use of U.S. Marshals and a regional task force pointed to close coordination across agencies, while the traffic stop itself made clear how quickly an out-of-state investigation can intersect with local enforcement.

No local victim or separate Buncombe County crime scene has been tied to the case. The Asheville arrest instead marked the point where a long-running West Virginia search for answers crossed into Western North Carolina, with the next step set for a return to Wood County court.