(RALEIGH) -- Two North Carolina residents have been arrested in connection with the discovery of a dead body in a Texas creek.

The human remains are believed to be those of 27 year old Laura Jean Ackerson, a Kinston, North Carolina woman who was reported missing July 18 after she failed to pick up her children at their father's Raleigh home.

Raleigh Police spokesman Jim Sughrue said Monday that Ackerson's ex-boyfriend Grant Hayes and his wife, Amanda Perry Hayes have been arrested and charged with the missing woman's demise.

Joe Garza lives in the rural community of Richland, Texas, southwest of Houston, and was an eyewitness to the recovery of human remains pulled from Oyster Creek over the weekend. He told Houston's ABC affiliate, KTRK-TV, that the body was dismembered.

"No head, no arms, no legs. Just a body.  It's sketchy, real sketchy."

Authorities believe the remains belong to Laura Ackerson, but investigators have stopped short of announcing a positive identification.

Chief Deputy Craig Brady of Fort Bend County, Texas, said the victim may have been killed in North Carolina and posthumously transported to Texas.

Grant Hayes is the father of Ackerson's two children. She was last seen on July 13 when she dropped the children off at Hayes's Raleigh home. Her car was located at an apartment complex in northwest Raleigh on July 20 where Ackerson and Hayes once shared an apartment.

Court documents released last week show Ackerson has been locked in a bitter custody dispute with Hayes over the children.