They Let Their Best Friend Into the Family—It Became Their Worst Nightmare

In March 2015, Cristie Schoen Codd and her husband, Joseph "JT" Codd, disappeared from their home on Hookers Gap Road in Leicester, North Carolina, a small community just west of Asheville. Family members reported the couple missing after being unable to reach them, and when investigators arrived at the home, they found the couple's cars and two dogs, but no sign of Cristie or JT themselves. Friends and relatives told police the pair had been preparing to leave for separate business trips that weekend, though it was unclear whether either of them ever actually departed.

Cristie was thirty-eight years old and five months pregnant at the time. She and JT had named their unborn daughter Skylar.

A Contestant Who Had Once Chased the Spotlight

Before her disappearance, Cristie Schoen Codd had built a career around food and hospitality. Born in Madrid, Spain, she rose to public recognition as a contestant on the eighth season of Food Network's competition series Food Network Star. She worked in Cajun-style cooking and also provided catering services on film sets, while JT worked behind the scenes in the television and film industry. The couple had settled into a quiet rural life in Leicester, the kind of small mountain community where neighbors and contractors often become familiar, trusted faces over time.

The Man They Hired

The Codds had hired a local home contractor, Robert Jason Owens, thirty-six, also of Leicester, to do work on their house. Owens wasn't a stranger to the couple. He was someone they'd brought into their home, trusted with access to their property, and treated, by most accounts, as a familiar and reliable presence in their lives.

That familiarity would turn out to be central to how the case unfolded. Investigators would later describe growing skeptical of the true nature of the relationship between Owens and the Codds, given what was eventually discovered about how their remains had been treated.

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A Dumpster and a Tip

Owens became a suspect after a resident reported seeing him placing large trash bags into a dumpster in the days following the couple's disappearance. That single observation, reported to police by an alert neighbor, became the thread investigators pulled to unravel what had actually happened to Cristie and JT.

Days later, the couple's remains were discovered, dismembered and burned in a wood stove on Owens' nearby property.

What Owens Told Investigators

Owens told investigators he had accidentally struck and killed the couple with his truck while they were attempting to help him get the vehicle out of a ditch. Authorities never publicly released the exact manner in which Cristie was killed. He later confessed to dismembering and burning both of their bodies in his wood stove, an admission Buncombe County District Attorney Todd Williams described as among the most disturbing killings in the county's history.

Williams noted that because there were no surviving witnesses and Owens had exclusive control of the crime scene for several days, nearly completing the destruction of his victims' remains, investigators would never be able to determine many of the specific facts surrounding exactly how the Codds died.

Escalating Charges

Owens was initially charged with two counts of felony first-degree murder, one count of felony breaking or entering, and larceny after breaking and entering. Prosecutors later filed notice of their intent to seek the death penalty against him if convicted. As the investigation progressed, authorities also examined a possible connection between Owens and an unrelated 2000 cold case disappearance in the same area, though this link was explored separately from the Codd case itself.

A Trailer That Burned Down

In an unusual turn during the investigation, Owens' own double-wide trailer burned down on March 24, 2015, less than two weeks after the Codds were reported missing. The fire added another layer to an already disturbing case, occurring while investigators were actively working to build the evidence against him.

The Plea and the Sentence

Rather than face trial and the possibility of the death penalty, Owens ultimately entered a guilty plea to three counts of second-degree murder and two counts of dismemberment, covering Cristie, JT, and their unborn daughter Skylar. Prosecutors, who had initially sought capital punishment, accepted the plea deal for a lesser sentence, and the judge sentenced Owens to a minimum and maximum term of 59.5 years in prison.

Following the plea, District Attorney Todd Williams released a public statement describing the case as one of the most disturbing in the county's history, noting that a newlywed, expectant couple had their lives cut short by someone they had trusted enough to bring into their home and their daily lives.

A Case That Still Resonates

The murders of Cristie Schoen Codd, JT Codd, and their unborn daughter remain one of the most widely discussed criminal cases to come out of western North Carolina, both for the brutality of what was done to the couple's remains and for the unsettling detail at the center of it: the person responsible wasn't a stranger who broke into their home in the night. He was someone they had voluntarily let in, paid, and trusted, the same way millions of homeowners trust contractors, handymen, and familiar faces in their communities every day.

For a case built almost entirely on circumstantial evidence and a suspect's own confession, the investigation's early break, a single neighbor noticing something as mundane as trash bags going into a dumpster, is often cited by those who followed the case as a reminder of how ordinary observations can become critical evidence when something is genuinely wrong.

This article is based on publicly reported news coverage of a real criminal case, including reporting from CBS News, Wikipedia, and regional North Carolina news outlets. It is intended for informational purposes.