The Rabun County Sheriff’s Office has released new details in a murder investigation that resulted in the arrests of two suspects. The case came to light earlier this week after one of the suspects was captured during a manhunt in Hall County.
For the first time since the investigation began, the sheriff’s office released the name of the woman believed to be the victim in the case, Martha Angela “Angie” Ledford of Rabun County. Before the murder was discovered, the 23-year-old Ledford had been missing for more than a week.
The sheriff’s office says investigators collected evidence at multiple locations in Northeast Georgia. They are now waiting on official confirmation of the victim’s identity.
“Investigators and agents have been in contact with Ledford’s family, and we are currently waiting for the remains to be positively identified by the GBI Crime Lab,” says a statement from the sheriff’s office.
The sheriff’s office asked for prayers for Ledford’s family, adding, “they have lost a loved one by a senseless act of another.”
Deputies arrested 23-year-old Keegan Cleve Phillips on Tuesday, August 8, after an intense manhunt in the Gillsville community in Hall County. He’s accused of murder. His boss, 62-year-old Robert Lee Peppers, reportedly turned himself in to authorities. Investigators charged him with concealing a death and abandonment of a dead body.
As Now Habersham first reported, Phillips worked for Peppers’ tree cutting service, Bob’s Local Tree Service (aka Bob’s Tree Service), and lived with him at a rundown residence with no electricity or power south of Clayton.
A winding trail of evidence
Law enforcement was tipped off to the murder on Sunday, August 6, after someone reported it to the Hall County Sheriff’s Office. Rabun County investigators traveled to Hall County to question the person. Simultaneously, they received a missing persons report on Ledford and began searching for her, the sheriff’s office says.
Sunday evening, investigators discovered a possible crime scene along with what appeared to have been a shallow grave. At that point, the Rabun County Sheriff’s Office (RCSO) asked the GBI to assist with the investigation.
Early Monday, August 7, law enforcement learned that a body had been disposed of in the Chattahoochee National Forest. The sheriff’s office called in a cadaver dog to assist in the search.
GBI agents and Rabun County deputies executed a search warrant at Peppers’ residence at 128 Peppers Lane. The K9 confirmed that human remains had been in what appeared to be a shallow grave. Authorities also searched an area of the Chattahoochee National Forest on Patterson Gap Road where the cadaver dog located a body.
GBI and RCSO investigators obtained a murder warrant for Phillips. Joined by Appalachian Regional Drug Enforcement Office and FBI agents, they were preparing to arrest him Tuesday morning when they learned he was at a residence in Hall County and the homeowner was holding him at gunpoint.
“Just prior to the Hall County deputies’ arrival to the residence on Gillsville Highway, Phillips fled into the woods,” an RCSO press release states.
Phillips was captured after several hours on Bryant Quarter Road near the Hall-Banks County line.
Additional crime scenes
As the manhunt unfolded an hour south of Rabun County, deputies and GBI agents executed a search warrant at 123 Alexander Lane in Clayton, where the sheriff’s office says “another crime scene had been discovered.”
“Later that night, after multiple interviews, Sheriff Nichols, our deputies, and GBI agents were lead [sic] to another property in the vicinity of Black Rock Mountain and retrieved critical evidence to this investigation and for [the] prosecution of the case,” the sheriff’s office says.
Authorities say they were slow to release information about the case to the public because they determined there was no public threat and to ensure retrieval of “critical evidence” before “it could possibly be destroyed.”
