A 31-year-old convicted sex offender accused of murdering one of six Eastern North Carolina women killed over the past four years made his first court appearance Wednesday.

Antwan Maurice Pittman stood before an Edgecombe County judge, where he was charged with first-degree murder for the death of 28-year-old Taraha Nicholson of Rocky Mount. Her body was found along a wooded area off Marriott Road, between Rocky Mount and Whitakers, with her body half-clothed.

Autopsy reports stated that Nicholson had been strangled. She had been reported missing on Feb. 22.

Nicholson’s murder is one of six cases being investigated by a task force lead by the Edgecombe County Sheriff's Office, and including the Rocky Mount Police Department, the State Bureau of Investigation and the FBI. The bodies have all been found in and around Rocky Mount, and Nicholson's was the fourth one to be identified.

The others include: Jarniece Latonya "Sunshine" Hargrove, 31, whose body was found June 29 on Seven Bridges Road; Ernestine Battle, 50, who was found March 13, 2008 near Seven Bridges and Wells roads; Jackie Nikelia Thorpe, 35, found Aug. 17, 2007 on Seven Bridges Road; and 29-year-old Melody Wiggins, whose remains were found May 29, 2005 off Old Farm Road, south of U.S. 64.

A sixth, unidentified set of remains was found in February off Melton Drive in Rocky Mount.

Authorities continue to search for three Rocky Mount women still missing: Yolanda “Snap” Lancaster, 37; Joyce Renee Durham, 46; and Christine Marie Boone, 43.

Messages left for Pittman’s two court-appointed attorneys were not returned.