December 21, 2023                                                                                        CONTACT:  Angie Grube
                                                                                                                    Public Information Director, SBI
                                                                                                                                agrube@ncsbi.gov

SBI’s Cold Case Investigation Team Help Solve

39-Year-Old Murder of NC Marine

(Raleigh, NC) – On December 27, 1984, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) was requested by the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office to assist with a homicide investigation that happened in the northern part of the county. The victim, Joseph Robert Russell, was a U.S. Marine stationed at New River Air Station in Jacksonville, North Carolina, at the time. Just two days after Christmas, Russell’s body was found alongside NC Highway 171 near a swamp. The husband and father of a 17-month-old girl had been struck with a hammer and stabbed multiple times.

As years passed, this case remained on the radar of investigators. This year, a retired officer from the Raleigh Police Department who is now a Special Investigator for the SBI’s Cold Case Investigation Team carefully reviewed the case file. New information was obtained regarding insurance money. Russell’s wife had taken out a life insurance policy on him shortly before he was murdered. After reviewing the evidence, it is suspected that his wife, Flora Jean Russell and her boyfriend, Clifton Richard Tydings, both who are now deceased, orchestrated the murder of Joseph Russell. It is believed that Tydings murdered Russell and Flora Russell, his wife, was in on the plan.

In November, an updated case summary was provided to the Beaufort County District Attorney who determined that probable cause existed for the arrest and prosecution of both Tydings and Flora Russell for the murder of Joseph Russell, if they were still alive today. In November of 2023, the case was closed at the request of the District Attorney.

This new information was shared with the victim’s daughter who was a baby at the time of her father’s murder. She is grateful that investigators never gave up and says this has given her a measure of peace and closure this Christmas season.

This was a complex case involving multiple law enforcement agencies. Their combined efforts and a fresh look from the SBI’s Cold Case Investigation Team led to the case being closed. We would like to thank the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, the Beaufort County District Attorney and the Arlington County Police Department in Virginia for their assistance with this case.

We are committed to reviewing and solving cases that may be decades old. We encourage anyone with information about an unsolved homicide to contact law enforcement with the information which could lead to that case being solved.