Justin Queen was already incarcerated when a long-running investigation into his mother’s disappearance produced two new felony charges.
ANDERSON, S.C. — Justin Queen was already inside a South Carolina prison when investigators arrived with warrants accusing him of murder and destruction of human remains in the death of his mother, ending one phase of a 14-month investigation while beginning a separate homicide prosecution.
Queen, 32, was being held at Kirkland Correctional Institution in Columbia on an unrelated child-neglect matter when the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office served the new warrants Aug. 27, 2026. He was then transferred to the Anderson County Detention Center to face allegations tied to the disappearance of his mother, 52-year-old Christy Dunn. The unusual custody sequence meant deputies did not have to locate Queen in the community when prosecutors approved the homicide charges; he had already been imprisoned while investigators continued building the case.
The child-neglect case and the homicide case are separate matters. Law&Crime reported, citing prison records, that Queen began serving the child-neglect sentence two days after deputies conducted a welfare check for Dunn in June 2025. The murder charge does not arise from that earlier conviction, and the existence of the prior case does not establish that Queen committed the later-alleged offenses. In the Dunn investigation, authorities still must prove the murder and destruction-of-remains charges through the criminal court process, where Queen is presumed innocent unless convicted.
Queen’s transfer to the county jail followed review by the 10th Circuit Solicitor’s Office. The sheriff’s office said prosecutors examined the evidence gathered by detectives and determined there was sufficient probable cause to seek charges. Probable cause permits the state to move a criminal case forward but is a lower standard than the proof beyond a reasonable doubt required for conviction. The reviewed public accounts did not indicate that Queen had entered a plea to the homicide charges or that a trial date had been scheduled.
Bond was handled separately for the two new allegations. FOX Carolina reported that Queen was denied bond on the murder count during his first appearance after the warrants were served. A $10,000 surety bond was set on the destruction-of-human-remains charge. Because the murder count kept him in custody, the surety amount attached to the second accusation did not create a route to immediate release. Public reporting after the hearing continued to list Queen as being held at the Anderson County Detention Center.
The evidence underlying those new charges traces back to June 27, 2025. Dunn’s employer asked the sheriff’s office to check on her after she had not been seen for approximately a week. Deputies responded to her Anderson-area residence on Standridge Road but could not find her, prompting a missing-person investigation. Officials said Dunn’s personal belongings and vehicle were still at the house. Queen and his son, Dunn’s grandson, were living there with her before she disappeared.
Detectives then identified activity they considered important to the investigation. Dunn’s vehicle was moved after her disappearance, but the sheriff’s office said investigators determined Queen was the only person who drove it. Authorities also said Dunn’s debit card continued to be used after she had been reported missing. Officials have not publicly released complete transaction records or an itemized account of the card activity, leaving the precise evidentiary significance of those transactions to be developed in the criminal proceedings.
A search of Dunn’s property added physical evidence to the investigation. Local reports based on the sheriff’s office chronology say that in July 2025, detectives and forensic personnel searched the property with the Anderson County Coroner’s Office and a Clemson University forensic anthropologist. Investigators found what appeared to be human bones in a burn pit. Another search warrant led to the recovery of more remains. The Clemson specialist confirmed that the material was human, according to authorities, and samples were submitted to a laboratory in Texas for DNA testing.
The sheriff’s office has said investigators believe the burned remains are Dunn’s. Reports available after Queen’s arrest did not show that authorities had publicly announced a final DNA identification, although the physical evidence formed part of the broader case reviewed by prosecutors. That distinction is important: investigators may reach an evidentiary conclusion based on the combined record before laboratory testing is publicly reported as complete, but the strength and admissibility of that evidence can later be examined by the defense and the court.
Other parts of the investigation were not tied to the burn pit. Detectives reviewed financial information, cellphone records and surveillance video, the sheriff’s office said. Investigators also obtained witness statements saying Queen had previously been seen in the woods with Dunn. Authorities have not publicly provided the dates of those sightings or described what the witnesses said the two were doing. As with the financial activity, those statements appear to have been considered alongside other evidence rather than presented as a stand-alone explanation for Dunn’s death.
Based on the combined investigation, detectives said they determined an assault occurred inside Dunn’s home and that her body was subsequently moved to the burn pit. The sheriff’s office has not publicly described how the assault allegedly occurred, identified a weapon or announced a motive. It has also not provided a complete minute-by-minute or day-by-day chronology of Dunn’s final known movements. Those unanswered questions leave substantial portions of the state’s eventual courtroom theory outside the public record.
The timing of the forensic search has required clarification because the original Law&Crime story said the bones were found in July 2026. Multiple local news reports drawing from the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office announcement instead place the search in July 2025, shortly after the missing-person investigation began. Those accounts describe a 14-month investigation between Dunn’s disappearance and Queen’s August 2026 arrest and identify the agencies that participated in the 2025 property search. The local chronology is therefore used in this account.
Queen’s incarceration on the earlier case may have simplified the mechanics of serving the murder warrants, but it does not answer the central factual questions in Dunn’s death. Prosecutors still must establish what happened, when it happened and what evidence connects Queen to the charged conduct. No motive has been made public, and the reviewed sources did not establish whether a final DNA result has been released or whether Queen has retained counsel for the homicide matter.
The sheriff’s office has described the investigation as ongoing. As of Oct. 17, the sources reviewed for this report did not identify a later public development that changed Queen’s charges or the custody status reported after his first appearance. He remains accused of murder and destruction of human remains while the case proceeds through the judicial system, a separate legal track from the child-neglect matter that had already placed him in state custody.
Author note: Last updated Oct. 17, 2026.