SNEADS FERRY – Onslow County sheriff’s deputies arrested a Sneads Ferry man late Monday night in connection to the death of a 40-year-old woman who was his neighbor.

John Clayton Mitchell, 27 of 106 Hill Lane, Sneads Ferry, was charged for his alleged role in killing Amy Marie Greene, 40, of 112 Hill Lane, Sheriff Ed Brown said. He was being held in Onslow County Jail without bond Tuesday night on murder and drug charges, Brown said.

Greene, formerly of Ahoskie, is a Hertford County native. She has a son and a brother residing in the Roanoke-Chowan area.

Funeral services were held yesterday (Friday) at Garrett Funeral Home, Ahoskie. Burial was in Highland Memorial Gardens.

Sheriff Brown said deputies found Greene’s body shortly after 7 p.m. Monday in Mitchell’s mobile home. Brown said when deputies arrived at the scene, they saw Mitchell sitting on the steps. Investigators entered the home through the back door.

&uot;When the rear door was opened, it revealed clearly the victim’s body and several smears of what appeared to be blood on the floor and walls in the immediate area,&uot; Brown said.

Mitchell was taken into custody at the scene.

Authorities still don’t know the official cause of Greene’s death, but she appeared to have been beaten and possibly strangled, Brown said Wednesday. No weapons were found in Mitchell’s trailer, where Greene’s body reportedly lay for two days before being discovered Monday by a neighbor.

The official cause of death won’t be known until an autopsy is completed by the state medical examiner’s office in Chapel Hill.

Drugs, including cocaine and marijuana, were also found during the search, Brown said.

Greene rented a room at 112 Hill Lane from Marie Cilley. She said Greene had been a boarder for the past eight weeks. Cilley’s son, Ty Cilley, was the one who found the body and called 911, she said.

Cilley said the last time she saw Greene was on Saturday about 1:30 p.m. when Greene left to go to work at Molly’s Restaurant in Surf City. She worked as a waitress there for 16 months after moving to Onslow County from Greenville.

When Greene failed to return to Cilley’s house Saturday night, Cilley said she began to worry.

&uot;We know she got a ride home, but she never came in the house,&uot; Cilley said. &uot;I knew something was wrong because she would always call if she was going to be out late.&uot;

Cilley said she went to the Surf City Police Department Sunday afternoon and filed a missing person’s report.

Mitchell’s mobile home, located next to Cilley’s residence, was an older singlewide. The electricity had been shut off, Cilley said. He worked as a fisherman.

&uot;He would come over here to eat dinner and take showers,&uot; she said. &uot;On Friday, he got mad at Amy because she fussed at him for putting his feet up on the coffee table. I heard him tell her, ‘You don’t know who you’re messing with’.&uot;