RALEIGH, N.C. -- A judge could release sealed documents Tuesday in the death of a North Carolina woman whose husband said she disappeared earlier this summer while jogging.

Search warrants in the investigation of Nancy Cooper's death have been sealed since early summer. Lawyers for The News & Observer and WRAL-TV have urged Wake Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens to make the records available, but prosecutors could ask they remain sealed.

A hearing was scheduled Tuesday.

Stephens said last month it would take an unusual event for him to extend the seal. The news organization argued that search warrants usually are made public in criminal cases.

The documents allowed authorities to search vehicles belonging to 34-year-old Nancy Cooper and her husband, Bradley Cooper, and to obtain DNA samples from him.

Nancy Cooper's body was found July 14 at a construction site less than three miles from her home in the Raleigh suburb of Cary.

No one has been arrested or named as a suspect in the case. Police have not revealed how Cooper died.

Nancy and Bradley Cooper lived together at the time of her death but had been planning a separation. Bradley Cooper and his wife's Canadian family had a custody dispute over his two daughters, ages 2 and 4, but he agreed in July to let her family take them to Canada to live for 75 days.