PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — Police Chief Matthew Board said Preston Pierce was an early person of interest in the missing persons case of Gretchen Fleming. Fleming disappeared in December of 2022 after leaving the My Way Bar and Lounge in Parkersburg.
Board said Monday on MetroNews “Talkline” through the natural progression of their investigation, Pierce became an obvious person of interest.
“The last person that she had been seen with was Preston Pierce. Detectives were able to locate him and speak with him and that’s how he became a person of interest,” said Board. “You have to see where the evidence takes you and as we followed that trail it proffered what we had found at the onset that he was a person of interest and a suspect.”
Last fall, a hunter in Wirt County made a grim discovery when he found the remains of a human in a shallow grave. Parkersburg Police worked closely with the West Virginia State Police who unearthed the remains and sent them off for forensic testing. In recent days test results were returned which positively identified those remains as Fleming.
“In collaboration with the Wood County Prosecuting Attorney’s office, with everything that had been gathered in the last three years and the fact that it was Gretchen in Wirt County, we felt comfortable moving forward with the arrest and pursuit of prosecution of Mr. Pierce,” he added Monday.
Pierce was apprehended in Asheville, North Carolina within hours of the Wood County grand jury returning a four-count indictment against him. The charges include murder, kidnapping, and concealment of a dead body. Board admitted as they prepared to go to the grand jury, they had the U.S. Marshal service keeping tabs on Pierce’s whereabouts since he had moved several times around the southeastern United States in recent months. Board said they knew the Marshals would be able to go after him even if he moved again abruptly out of state.
“As we drew closer to the grand jury convening and in anticipation of the potential indictment we honed in on his location and had been in touch with the United States Marshals,” he said.
Pierce appeared before a judge Monday morning in Buncombe County, North Carolina for an extradition hearing. His hearing was continued until June 5 at 9a.m. Until then he remains in a North Carolina jail without bond.