The attorney for James Dunmore, who is accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend Allisha Watts, is calling for his release.
On Monday, Dunmore is scheduled to appear in court, and his attorney is expected to ask for his release.
Watts, 39, was reported missing in July. Her body was found more than a month later, on Aug. 24, about 20 minutes away from her home in Foxfire. Her remains were found in the woods behind a cemetery along a back road leading to her house.
James Dunmore, 51, her then-boyfriend, was charged with Watts’ murder and jailed without bond in Montgomery County.
WRAL News on Friday confirmed that Dunmore’s attorney has asked the court to change his $1 million secured bond to unsecured so Dunmore can wait for trial outside of prison.
The report states Watts’ cause of death was “undetermined” because her body was so badly decomposed by the time it was found in the woods.
Dunmore’s defense argued that, since there was no clear cause of death, prosecutors cannot meet their burden of proof against Dunmore.
WRAL News has followed Watts’ disappearance since July 2023.
Watts lived in Moore County but friends said she traveled to Charlotte on July 14 to visit her boyfriend, Dunmore.
Arrest warrants from Montgomery County indicate Watts was killed on July 16, which is the last day she was seen alive. Watts and Dunmore had tickets to a comedy show in Charlotte at Bojangles Coliseum that night but did not attend, friends told WRAL News.
WRAL News uncovered that Dunmore has a violent past — with past convictions for kidnapping in 2003. Virginia records show Dunmore has convictions for abduction, stalking and assault and battery. The abduction charge from 2003 carried a maximum prison sentence of five years.
Find WRAL’s full coverage of the case and a timeline here.
If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, you can call The National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE). For county-by-county help, the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence has a list of resources at nccadv.org.
Here are some additional resources:
