Chapel Hill Police investigate death of 24-year-old

Chapel Hill police have identified the 24-year-old man found dead in Bolin Creek on Saturday morning as Shane Scott Pease of Fort Bragg.

Police began investigating the death after a jogger found Pease lying in the creek around 9 a.m. Saturday morning.

Pease was not a UNC student, according to a Chapel Hill Police Department press release.

The jogger contacted police after finding Pease, who was unresponsive, and Emergency Medical Services later declared Pease dead at the scene, the release states.

According to the release, Pease was found just north of the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Hillsborough Street intersection.

Lt. Kevin Gunter, Chapel Hill police spokesman, said Pease’s body was taken Saturday to the medical examiner to determine cause of death.

Part of Bolinwood Drive was closed off as a crime scene Saturday morning, but the area reopened Saturday afternoon. Police announced Saturday at around 4 p.m. that a dead man had been found.

Pease’s identity was not released until Sunday afternoon because police waited to notify next of kin first.

Police said Sunday that they did not expect to release additional information about Pease’s death or the investigation until this morning at earliest.

Christopher Owens, who said he is a long-time friend of Pease’s, said in an email that he doesn’t yet know what happened to Pease or what caused his death.

Owens said in the email that despite reports to the contrary, Pease was not jogging but was out with a friend.

A Myspace account registered under the name Shane Scott Pease features photos of a man dressed in military gear in both Baghdad and Samarra, Iraq, in 2007, according to the photo captions.

A Facebook page registered under the name Shane Pease — which shares friends in common with Pease’s Myspace page — says Pease was in the U.S. Army.

Officials at Fort Bragg could not confirm if Pease has been stationed there as of Sunday night.

According to the Facebook account, Pease attended East Montgomery High School in Biscoe.

Most of his listed friends on both the Facebook and Myspace pages are either from East Montgomery High School, in the military or share Pease’s last name.

Contact the City Editor at city@dailytarheel.com.