Two defendants indicted in the deaths of Raheim and Carla Murray are accused of targeting the married couple after a $75,000 inheritance.
MORGANTON, N.C. — A North Carolina double-murder case that first became public after human remains were found beside a nature trail now includes an alleged $75,000 inheritance motive, a disputed account of events inside the victims’ home and a Superior Court proceeding scheduled for September.
Jamar Quarmaine Propst and Tosha Lee Lewis, both 36, were indicted Aug. 6 on two counts each of first-degree murder and felony conspiracy in the deaths of married couple Raheim McClain Murray, 31, and Carla Janon Murray, 39, according to local court reporting. The most detailed public account of the prosecution’s theory comes from a search warrant summarizing investigators’ findings and statements attributed to Propst. An indictment is an accusation, and neither defendant has been convicted in the Burke County case.
The warrant places money at the center of investigators’ theory. According to The Paper’s report on the document, Propst told detectives that Lewis and Carla Murray had worked together at a smoke shop and that Lewis knew Carla had received an inheritance of about $75,000. The document attributes to Propst a statement that the Murrays were killed “for their money.” That alleged statement is part of the investigative record rather than a judicial finding. Prosecutors would still have to establish any motive and each element of the charged crimes through evidence in court.
Investigators allege the plan began before a trip the Murrays were expected to make to Myrtle Beach. The warrant says Lewis went to their residence and claimed she and Propst were fighting, giving her a reason to remain at the house. According to Propst’s account as summarized in the warrant, Lewis stayed until the couple went to sleep, then left through a back door while leaving it accessible to Propst. The warrant alleges Propst entered and shot Raheim and Carla Murray while they slept with a .22-caliber firearm. The material reviewed for this report does not include a final medical examiner’s report independently establishing the cause and manner of each death.
The allegations do not stop with the killings. The warrant says the defendants cleaned the residence and concealed the bodies in the rear of a Buick registered to Lewis for at least a day. Propst allegedly told investigators that he later transported the bodies to the Simpson Park area in Glen Alpine and spent two days burying them in a wooded plot near the nature trail. That description was disclosed after authorities had already found the remains and made arrests, providing a proposed explanation for how two people who lived roughly a dozen miles away came to be found near a public recreational path.
The financial allegations are unusually specific. Investigators say the victims’ faces were used after their deaths to unlock their phones and remove passcodes. The warrant further alleges that Lewis transferred $19,000 from Carla Murray’s Cash App account into her own account. Investigators also alleged that Lewis and Propst moved themselves and their four children into the Murrays’ home during the period between the suspected killings and their arrests. Those details have been presented through warrant materials and news reports about them; they have not yet been established by testimony or a verdict.
The warrant describes an effort to maintain the appearance that the Murrays were away. Lewis allegedly told officers that the married couple had traveled to Myrtle Beach and that she was staying at their home, caring for their dogs and using Carla’s silver Dodge Durango until they returned. She allegedly said she drove Carla to Myrtle Beach on July 18 while Raheim traveled separately on his motorcycle. Automated license-plate records cited in the warrant showed the Durango making a trip to Myrtle Beach on July 18 and returning July 19, while Raheim’s motorcycle had last been recorded July 6, according to The Paper.
The case was already unfolding on the ground in Glen Alpine by then. On July 20, the Burke County Sheriff’s Office and Glen Alpine Police Department responded to Simpson Park after receiving a report of suspicious circumstances on the nature trail. A more detailed warrant narrative later said a parks employee had found two shovels hidden with brush and then noticed disturbed ground roughly 90 feet from the trail. Authorities requested assistance from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, turning what initially appeared to be an unexplained scene in the woods into a coordinated death investigation.
Human remains were found near the trail July 21. They were later identified as Raheim Murray, with the warrant account saying fingerprints from an autopsy confirmed his identity on July 23. Investigators then turned greater attention to the Murrays’ residence. According to the warrant reporting, a July 24 search found .22-caliber projectiles in the home and located Lewis’ Buick there. Propst was interviewed later that day. Lewis was also taken into custody while driving another vehicle, and investigators sought evidence that could potentially connect that vehicle to the homicide inquiry.
Authorities obtained initial murder and conspiracy warrants against both defendants by July 25. The Burke County Sheriff’s Office said they were taken into custody without incident in the early morning. Later that day, investigators found a second set of remains near the same nature-trail area. That discovery produced an additional murder count and conspiracy count against each defendant. The second victim was identified July 27 as Carla Murray. The sheriff’s office had delayed publicly identifying her until confirmation was complete and relatives had been notified.
The search of vehicles and other locations produced items that investigators listed as potential evidence, including a hotel room key, keys to the Durango, pillows, a rubber glove and clothing, according to the reported warrant. The document also indicated that investigators believed Lewis had continued using Carla’s cellphone, although that phone had not been recovered as of July 27. The existence of an item in a search return does not by itself establish its significance. Prosecutors will have to show how any physical, digital or financial evidence relates to the charged offenses if they seek to use it at trial.
The legal posture changed on Aug. 6 when the Burke County grand jury returned indictments. Before that step, a probable-cause date had been set for Aug. 17. The indictment moved the prosecution into Superior Court, and The Paper reported that Propst and Lewis were scheduled to appear there Sept. 28. They had been held without bond following the arrests. No plea resolving the charges, trial verdict or final judicial determination of the allegations was found in the material reviewed through Aug. 28.
Propst also has an unrelated criminal case pending in Catawba County. He was one of four men indicted in 2023 in connection with the 2008 death of Jeter Edward “Eddie” Greene Jr., whom police say was killed during a robbery in Long View. Propst had been released on a $100,000 bond in that case before the Burke County arrests, prosecutors said during his July court appearance. That prosecution is separate, and the allegations in the older case cannot establish whether he committed the offenses now charged in Burke County.
The Burke County Sheriff’s Office has identified a broad group of agencies involved in the Murray investigation, including the SBI, FBI, Catawba County Sheriff’s Office, Glen Alpine Police Department, Morganton Department of Public Safety and Myrtle Beach Police Department. Authorities have said the investigation remains ongoing. As the case moves through Superior Court, the warrant’s account of an inheritance, an alleged money transfer and an asserted plan inside the Murrays’ home remains the prosecution-side theory described in investigative records, subject to challenge and proof in court.
Author note: Last updated Aug. 28, 2026.