Police search Horry County property related to missing NC woman. What we know
Horry County Police searched an area property this week in connection with a 1999 cold case.
The police department was seen excavating a property in the 5000 block of Flossie Road off Highway 701 near Conway on Wednesday. Officers had reportedly been surveying the property for weeks, following the demolition of a home there.
Horry County spokesperson Thomas Bell shared that the search was related to the decades-long search for Lisa Neugent.
Officers were at the property pursuing “continued leads” to the case, Bell wrote in an email to The Sun News. However, nothing was discovered at the property, and the case remains open.
Neugent is from Rockingham County, North Carolina. On Sept. 8, 1999, she called her parents on her way to Cherry Grove Beach in North Myrtle Beach to help her boyfriend with a construction project, The Sun News previously reported. She was never heard from again.
Neugent was reportedly trying to escape an abusive marriage with another man, whom she married in 1997, The Sun News previously reported. Two years later, she met her new boyfriend and moved in with him in Conway, where she worked as a courier.
Friends reportedly said that Neugent’s boyfriend was very possessive of her, but the couple remained together for the next two years, The Sun News previously reported. In September 1999, Neugent’s parents came to visit, but on the last night of their visit, her boyfriend did not return home.
Neugent then shared with her parents that the boyfriend was using drugs, and her parents convinced her to come home to Rockingham County, The Sun News previously reported. The next day, her boyfriend started calling.
Eventually, he came looking for her. He told her parents he had rented a local hotel room, saying he wanted to discuss his relationship with Lisa and then return her home the following day. He took her to Cherry Grove to work on a home improvement project instead.
He called a friend of Neugent on Sept. 12, claiming Neugent had left the hotel they were staying in — the Sea Mist Resort in Cherry Grove — taking their dog and $1,200 from his pockets with her while he slept.
Neugent was not at their Conway home, and the home’s management said that the boyfriend had moved out weeks ago, The Sun News previously reported.
Neugent’s boyfriend was arrested a month later in Georgia on narcotics and burglary charges, but he never appeared for those charges, The Sun News previously reported. As of 2011, he was also wanted in South Carolina for child support.
No foul play was ever discovered in Neugent’s case, and she remains a missing person.
This story was originally published November 19, 2025 at 12:17 PM.
