Two of the six defendants charged with the first-degree kidnapping and murder of 20-year-old Joshua Bailey pleaded guilty last week to lesser charges in a plea agreement.
Under the agreement, Jack Johnson II, 21, of 101 Culbreth Drive in Chapel Hill, and Ryan Ladar Davis Lee, 22, of 1103 Sourwood Drive in Chapel Hill, will be required to testify against their co-defendants. Bailey’s body was discovered in September 2008 off Big Woods Road in Chatham County, where suspects allegedly moved it after he was killed in an execution-style murder in a wooded area off Twisted Oak Drive west of Carrboro.
Johnson pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit kidnapping, while Lee pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to first-degree murder and accessory after the fact to second-degree kidnapping.
Johnson will be sentenced after the other cases associated with the murder are resolved. Lee was sentenced to 12 to 15 months in the N.C. Department of Corrections on the accessory to kidnapping charge and will be sentenced on the other charge after the other cases are resolved.