WINDSOR – The Bertie County Grand Jury handed down a murder indictment Monday.

Detective Sgt. Ed Pittman of the Bertie County Sheriff’s Office said the Grand Jury indicted Kendall Floyd Riddick, 26, with murder.

Riddick was arrested just after midnight July 15 and charged in the death of 19-year-old Jessica Riddick. He was taken into custody on Sand Hill Road near Colerain.

Jessica Riddick’s body was found July 10 near her vehicle in a wooded area off of Black Rock Road in the Midway/Merry Hill area. She apparently died due to a stab wound.

“A kitchen knife was found a good ways away from the body, under the water in a ditch,” Bertie County Sheriff Greg Atkins said at the time.

If the knife is the murder weapon, law enforcement officials believe it must have been thrown in the ditch after the victim was stabbed.

Officers were originally summoned to the Black Rock Road location when a person notified them of a vehicle located in a wooded area. When officers arrived, they found Jessica Riddick’s body near the vehicle.

The sheriff said the vehicle had apparently traveled through a mobile home park and a field before coming to rest in the woods.

“Based on the (tire) tracks, the vehicle went through the trailer park area at a high rate of speed, passed through a soybean field and then 35 yards into a wooded area,” Atkins said.