Lula man also charged in murder case involving fugitive arrested in Gillsville area

The GBI says a 62-year-old Lula man has also been charged in connection with a Rabun County murder case that led to an hours-long manhunt in the Gillsville area Tuesday which resulted in the arrest of the other man charged in the case.

Robert Lee Peppers has been charged with concealing a death and unlawful disposal of a body. Keegan Cleve Phillips, 23, of Otto, North Carolina, the object of the manhunt is facing a murder charge after his arrest about 7:00 Tuesday night on Bryant Quarter Road by Hall County sheriff’s deputies.

A GBI spokeswoman says that on Sunday the agency was requested by the Rabun County Sheriff’s Office to assist in a murder investigation after it received information that a man killed a person and disposed of the body in Rabun County.  Based on the information received, agents and deputies found the body of the victim on Monday in the Chattahoochee – Oconee National Forest.

Authorities later learned that Phillips had been seen in the Gillsville area and launched an “extensive” search of the area leading to his arrest without incident. Phillips and Peppers are being held in the Rabun County Detention Center in Clayton.

No information has been released about the victim in the case or the events surrounding the murder.