RICEVILLE - Jimmy Lamar Long Jr. died June 30, but there hasn't been a funeral yet. Long's family is waiting tensely for the day that someone will be arrested in connection with his death. Though Long was found dead after his home was set on fire, there have been no criminal charges.
"Jimmy was really well known in Swannanoa. People just loved him. And somewhere among them walks the person who murdered him," said Long's sister, Debra Hartmann. "How do you have a service and not know that that person isn't there?"
Long was found dead about 6:20 a.m. June 30 at 84 E. Mountain Way near the Riceville community east of Asheville, according to a news release.
Long's death is still under investigation, and the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office has executed
more than a half dozen search warrants and conducted multiple interviews, said Sheriff's Office spokesperson Matt Marshall. Marshall declined to release Long's cause of death, and the Sheriff's Office has not said why it believes his death to be a homicide.
"We are also collaborating with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. This case does present challenges because a large amount of evidence was lost to fire," Marshall said.
Long's son, Jason Long, said that he has reached out to the Sheriff's Office but has received little information, which has disappointed him.
"But I also understand not every case is an easy case. My hopes are that they are doing everything in their power to figure stuff out," Jason Long said.
Hartmann said she has left messages with the Sheriff's Office and has not received a call back. She said she feels "frozen in time."
"We've not been able to get together and have that closure. I don't think a funeral service should be connected with the closure of understanding what happened and somebody being held accountable for it, but it is. There's no way to separate that," she said.
Marshall said that the Sheriff's Office has been "in close contact" with "many of Long’s immediate family members" and have "had multiple conversations" updating them on the progress of the case.
"This is not a cold case. It is an active and ongoing homicide investigation," he said.
Who was Jimmy Long?
Jimmy Long was a kind man, known for his sense of humor, Jason Long said.
"He absolutely loved to make people smile and help people as much as he could. He was always the one to be cracking jokes and trying to bring everybody's mood up no matter what was going on," he said.
Long ran a "handyman" company for around eight years, but more recently suffered from severe back problems, Jason Long said.
"He was in so much pain all the time. He couldn't even work, and I saw that man work with broken bones," Jason Long said.
He also faced a lifelong struggle with addiction that started when he was prescribed opiates at age 14. He had been suffering from muscular pain most of his life, and by 14, he couldn't function, Hartmann said. Three years later, Long and his mother learned that he had a rare form of diabetes, and Long was taken off the prescription pain medication.
Long said that his father was sober at one point for around eight years, but he was hospitalized and put on opiates again, and he returned to using drugs after his release. Jason Long said that his father's health problems contributed to the struggle.
"I could understand that happening to somebody. You're clean for so many years, doing amazing, working harder than most people ever would, regardless of his age, and then one day, you suddenly can't do anything," he said.
Hartmann and Jason Long both theorize that Long's struggle with addiction led to his killing.
"He did something that angered somebody. That was kind of his pattern. He would escalate in his means for getting the drugs until he was stealing," Hartmann said.
The fire
Jason Long said that he last saw his father around two weeks before his death. The two had been living together previously, but Jason Long had moved out to live with his girlfriend, and he went to his father's home to pick up things that he left behind.
On the day of the fire, Jason Long was four hours away working, and he received a call from a neighbor, who said the house was on fire.
"The neighbor didn't think he was in the house because there was no vehicle, and then I told them he doesn't have a vehicle anymore. And then they kinda realized. Something in me just told me that was it," he said.
He said that he wants his father to be remembered for who he was, rather than his addiction.
"He always tried to do everything he could to help people. … It didn't matter if it made him broke or tired or anything, he'd keep trying to help," he said. "He was so kind, and he was always, always making jokes."
Kara Fohner is the Public Safety Reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times. Email her at kfohner@usatodayco.com or call her at 980-241-8671.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Family seeks answers in 'arson' death of Jimmy Long
