On a snowy night in February of 1972, the small, quiet town of Boone, North Carolina was the site of a shocking triple homicide. This horrific crime stunned the community—things like this just didn’t happen in the mountain town, home to Appalachian State University. Not only that, but the victims owned a successful business, and the murders left only one survivor who lived a few miles away. Within a few months, four men were arrested and charged with the crime, but they were eventually released due to a lack of evidence. Then, the case went cold for more than 50 years, until a member of an organized crime ring in Georgia confessed that he and three other acquaintances had orchestrated the murder in a contract killing. But is there really evidence to support this confession? Who would have hired them? Or did someone else much closer to the family get away with murder?
I used a variety of sources while working on this script, including historical news archives from the time period of the murders and reports published in 2022. But the most helpful resource was the book, “Convoluted,” written by Watauga County native and author Terry Harmon, who was six years old when the murders occurred. He was intrigued when local authorities announced the murder had been solved and set out to explore his unanswered questions by researching this book.
The Durham Family
On February 4, 1972, 51-year-old Bryce Durham, who owned the Buick dealership in Boone, left a Rotary meeting that evening that was held at Appalachian Ski Mountain in Bowing Rock. A group of Green Berets who were training in the area had planned to give a demonstration to the club members. But it began snowing that afternoon and the road conditions were quickly growing treacherous, so only about a dozen members of the Rotary Club made it to the meeting. One of the members drove Bryce to the dealership, which was located on King Street, around 8:30 p.m. Bryce’s wife, 44-year-old Virginia, was there at the business working late. Their 19-year-old son, Bobby, a student at nearby Appalachian State University, was also there. Bobby had planned to meet his friend Phil Ginn at the basketball game on campus. When he never arrived, Phil chalked it up to the snowy conditions and figured his friend had just changed his mind.
Bryce knew a four-wheel-drive GMC vehicle called a Jimmy had arrived at the dealership that day, and he wanted to use it to get his family home that night. They lived off the N.C. 105 bypass on a short but steep dead-end road. The Durham’s older daughter, Ginny, and her husband Troy Hall lived in a mobile home about four miles away from the family. They were both students at Appalachian State at the time, like Bobby Durham. Around 10 p.m., after returning from studying at the App State library, Troy later told police he answered a phone call on their landline.
A Strange Phone Call
He said a voice that he believed belonged to his mother-in-law told him that three men were beating Bryce and Bobby in a back room of the house. In the early reports, news outlets reported that Virginia actually used a racial slur when describing the men. Then, the call was cut off. It doesn’t appear Troy called the police after this call. Instead, he told Ginny what he believed he’d heard on the phone, and then went out to his car. It wouldn’t start, so Troy asked a neighbor to drive them over to the Durhams. Ginny Hall waited in the car while Troy and the neighbor, a man named Cecil Small who also worked as a private investigator, entered the house.
Inside, the phone had been ripped from the wall. The two men followed the sound of running water and followed it to a bathroom. There, they found a gruesome sight. Bobby, Bryce, and Virginia were all placed on their stomachs, with their heads inside the bathtub. They weren’t moving. Their heads were covered with water and it had overflowed onto the floor. The two men quickly left the house and drove down the road to a nearby apartment complex, where they called the authorities.
The sheriff at the time, Ward Carroll, later said the three had been strangled with a rope. They had rope burns on their necks and their hands. Bryce also appeared to have been struck by a blunt instrument and Virginia had been hit in the face. All three had rope burns on their neck and hands. A rope about 58 inches long fashioned into a slip knot was placed around Bryce’s neck. No other ropes were found on Virginia or Bobby. The frosted shower doors had been removed, presumably by the killers, and placed upright in the foyer right outside the bathroom. Bobby’s body was placed over the tub closest to the bathroom door, with his father beside him, and Virginia’s body slightly overlapping that of her husband’s. They were all fully clothed but none were wearing shoes.
The family’s two-year-old Manchester dog was found with the bodies, whimpering and in distress. Cecil Small said he hadn’t seen it when he and Troy entered the house. The dog had to be forcibly removed from Virginia’s side.
The house had been ransacked, and it was apparent the family had been interrupted while they were eating a meal in front of the television set. Sheriff Carroll believed the assailants came in through the garage, and into a door that connected to the den. Pictures had been torn from the walls, bedding stripped off beds, and there was a small pool of blood on the den floor. Police later retrieved a bullet from a .22 caliber gun from the wood paneling in the den. They theorized the killers had fired a warning shot to subdue the family during the attack. The GMC Jimmy Bryce had driven his wife and son home in was missing. It was found a short time later abandoned in a ditch on Poplar Grove Road, about a mile from the Durham home. Inside the Jimmy, investigators found a pillowcase stuffed with silver trays and silverware from the house.
At the time, police believed robbery was a motive for the murders, even though a bank deposit containing receipts from the dealership had been left behind. Bobby and Bryce’s wallets were located beside their bodies in the bathroom with any money they had contained stripped out.
During the autopsies, the medical examiner surmised Virginia had been strangled before being placed in the bathroom, but the two men had been strangled while their heads were underwater. Water was found in their lungs. Both Bryce and Virginia had bloodied noses. Bryce had died of asphyxia, rope strangulation, and drowning. Virginia died of ligature strangulation, and Bobby died of asphyxia, rope strangulation, and possible drowning. The coroner noted no signs of resistance in any of the victims, which further confirmed the theory that the murders had been carried out by more than one assailant. The corner said, “The family had seemingly been overpowered with lightning speed.”
After the murders, The Watauga Democrat published the following editorial:
We share the general sorrow occasioned by the tragic deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Bryce Durham and son, Bobby Joe, when their home was invaded Thursday night.
Of all places, we would have least supposed that a Boone home would have been pillaged and the occupants slain. That the wave of indiscriminate crime which has been sweeping the nation has come here to take the lives of a prominent local businessman, his wife and son has occasioned grief and at the same time has brought uneasiness to householders.
Sheriff’s officers, augmented by agents of the State Bureau of Investigation are working diligently to identify and bring to justice the person or persons responsible for this heinous crime, and we feel their efforts will soon meet with success. Then, the guilty will no doubt be punished to the degree befitting the atrocious act.
The Democrat family extends sympathy to the bereaved daughter, other relatives of the deceased and to business associates in the bereavement.
Meanwhile, Boone citizens have been made more aware of the common dangers that lurk in the darkne3ss, so long as these felons are at large. Many have taken a second look at firearms, unused for many years in some cases, have made their door locks more secure and have taken every logical step toward preventing burglaries.
The old precept that a ‘man’s home is his castle’ has come into question of late, but we hear that a lot of people still believe that and are aiming to do whatever they can to protect their abodes and their families.
A Family With Strong Ties to North Carolina
The Durham family were no strangers to the area. Bryce Durham had graduated from high school in Wilkes County and attended App State when it was still called the Appalachian State Teachers College in Boone before enlisting in the Navy in 1942. Part of his service included repairing damaged ships at Pearl Harbor. After serving for 37 months, he returned home to North Carolina. He met his wife, Virginia Church, while working as a teacher at Mount Pleasant High School. Virginia was also from Wilkes County and returned back to the area after studying at Bowling Green Business College in Kentucky. She first took a job at Wilkes Auto Sales, Inc. in North Wilkesboro. Bryce and his wife lived in several different places in North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina after he left teaching to take a job in the auto loan business. Their daughter Ginny was born in May of 1952 and Bobby shortly after in May of 1953. By 1963, the family was living in Mount Airy, with Bryce working as the manager and secretary-treasurer of the Mount Airy Auto Loan and Sales Finance Company. Virginia worked as the receptionist and bookkeeper.
Ginny and Bobby attended Mount Airy High School and were involved in a number of extracurricular activities, Ginny in Dramatics and Christian clubs and Bobby was active in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and earned his Eagle Scout. He played football on both the jv and varsity teams. Ginny said her parents were ultra conservative and did not allow their children to participate in many other outside activities. In late 1969, Bryce purchased the Green Buick-Pontiac Dealership, Inc. on East King Street in Boone, changing the name simply to the Buick-Pontiac Dealership. Virginia joined Bryce by fulfilling the roles of bookkeeper, cashier, and performing clerical work where needed. Ginny had graduated from high school in Mount Airy and enrolled in the summer session at Appalachian State.
Bryce purchased their home on a 1-acre lot off the Highway 105 Bypass from its original owners around the same time. Bobby transferred from Mount Airy to Watauga High School during his junior year to coincide with his father purchasing the car dealership. He played on the football team and participated in church and scouting activities. After his graduation in 1971, he promptly enrolled at Appalachian State University for the summer session, planning on majoring in either economics or business. He lived at home with his parents during his first year and helped them at the dealership whenever he could.
Ginny Durham Marries
In the spring of 1971, Ginny Durham met another classmate on campus, Troy Hall, and the two began dating. Troy and his brother, Ray, had a small business moving trailers. They eventually purchased a few different mobile homes and earned income renting them out to college students in town. Troy said he had attended a prestigious military academy, talked up his wealthy family, and said they lived in Wilkes County. That story was eventually debunked. Bryce and Virginia didn’t have a good feeling about the young man and tried to interfere in Ginny’s relationship with him, but that only made her more determined.
Terry Harmon’s research in writing “Convoluted” uncovered that Troy was involved in a lot of criminal activity, from drug use to drug trafficking to possibly sex trafficking. Still, he and Ginny were married in 1971. The young couple and her parents did not see eye to eye on a lot of things. Troy thought with her parents owning a car dealership they were entitled to more luxuries than they received. For example, Bryce gave his daughter a car to drive but then took it away when Troy vomited all over it after a late-night party.
After the murders, employees at the car dealership were surprised when Troy came by and told everyone he would be taking over the business. He also told a store owner in town, when he was purchasing a suit for the funeral, that he would be moving into the Durham’s former home. Neither of those things ever happened, but his attitude rubbed people the wrong way.
A Town in Mourning
On Saturday evening, February 5, the only local funeral home hosted the viewing of Bryce, Virginia, and Bobby. The next day, after a light snowfall, the funeral was held at the First Baptist Church in downtown Boone, with the main sanctuary and balcony full of family and community members from Watauga and Wilkes County, as well as neighbors and colleagues from Surry County. Afterward, the burial took place at the Pleasant Home Baptist Church Cemetery in the nearby Lomax community of Wilkes County. Five to six hundred people attended the graveside service.
My main question in reading about this murder, and the reports of Ginny and Troy Hall acting suspiciously afterward, was how much did she stand to inherit? Terry Harmon did a comprehensive breakdown for his book. While Ginny and her husband initially told the employees at the car dealership that they planned to run it, the eventually agreed to sell it for about $50,000. They also sold the Durham family home after paying off the mortgage. The remaining assets, including life insurance policies, and the sale of land the Durhams had owned in North Carolina and Virginia, came to around $130,000.
The day after the murders, the Winston-Salem Journal reported that three men who lived near Boone were being sought for questioning in the murders, and in fact, Sheriff Ward Caroll said, “The investigation has definitely centered on these three negro men.” I was not able to find any other information about this statement, and to my knowledge, these phantom men were never questioned.
In February of 1972, Governor Robert Scott announced he was adding $5,000 to the reward for information leading to the conviction of those responsible for the murders. This $5,000 was added to money already contributed by the Watauga County Commissioners, the Rotary Club, the Automobile Dealers Association, The Optimist Club, and the Motel Association.
A Psychic Brought In
The March 26, 1972 edition of the Winston-Salem Journal reported that a psychic named M.C. Dykshoorn was brought to Boone to consult with the local authorities on the Durham murders. The sheriff said the man spent about six hours in town, but declined to share what facts in the case were passed onto the psychic. Sheriff Carroll said relatives of Bryce Durham had requested be involved, and they paid for the expenses of his trip. One officer said the psychic was briefed on the facts of the case and taken to the Durham home.
I want to spend some time discussing a few of the theories that circulated in the small community of Boone following the murders. Harmon discussed these in length in his book.
The most prevalent theory seems to be that Troy Hall put out a hit on his in-laws. I discussed earlier how much the Ginny and Troy received as she was the sole heir to the Durham estate. But from the way Troy talked around town, and at the car dealership, he believed the family was worth much more money. His relationship with their daughter had caused undeniable tension in the family, with Bobby caught in the middle. Some people believed Bryce and Virginia were the main targets of the murders, as Bobby had planned to be at the basketball game with his friends that night.
Other people theorized Bryce was targeted due to bad business dealings, especially during his time working in the automotive industry. One of the SBI agents involved in the investigation believed Bryce could have been silenced because he, “revealed the ringleaders of a car dealership scam in Surry County that involved rolling back the miles on vehicles.” But when the agent, Larry Wagner, traveled to Surry County to explore this possibility, he found no evidence of it. Harmon pointed out in his book that rolling odometers back was commonplace among car dealers at that time, because there weren’t any consumer protection laws against the practice between 1969 and 1973. After the move to Boone, Bryce had become friends with a man named John Pritchett, who was a customer at the Buick dealership before Bryce purchased it. Pritchett said Bryce had confided to him about what prompted the move out of Surry County. He said there had been a ring of auto thieves in Virginia that were stealing cars and changing the titles in Mount Airy. Unknowingly, Bryce had loaned customers money on those stolen cars. Because the car ring thieves were all located in the Virginia Counties bordering Surry County, they had threatened the Durham family and knew where they lived.
And of course we can’t forget that these murders occurred just a few years after Charles Manson family senselessly killed seven people in California as part of the Tate Bianca murders and “drug-crazed hippies” allegedly murdered Green Beret physician Jeffrey MacDonald’s wife and children at Fort Bragg North Carolina. But SBI agents quickly pointed out that the Durham family were targeted, unlike the more random victimization of the other murders. No one really believed random hippies on an LSD trip just happened to discover the Durham family’s home off the 105 Bypass in the middle of a snowstorm.
Asheville Residents Charged in the Murder
In late April 1972, law enforcement officials announced that four men from Asheville had been charged with the first-degree murders of Bryce, Virginia, and Bobby Durham. They were: Dewey Henry Coffey, age 21, Dean Chandler, age 20, Jerry Ray Cassada, age 28, and Eugene Clarence Garren, age 22. Dean Chandler was the first man arrested and provided information used to pick up the other suspects. These men were part of crime ring in Western North Carolina that systematically cased and broke into houses containing items the men deemed valuable. While initially there was a lot of coverage about these arrests, I don’t want to spend too much time on it here because while a few of the men were convicted on theft charges, the case involving the triple homicide was eventually dropped due to a lack of evidence. Dean Chandler had confessed to being involved in the murders tangentially, and pointed the finger at the other three men arrested, but I believe he was trying to gain favor with law enforcement and may have even believed he was entitled to some of the reward money if he confessed.
The case went cold for many years. Ginny and Troy Hall divorced in 1979 and she later remarried.
Is the Case Now Solved?
Then, in early February of 2022, Watauga County Sheriff Len Hagaman announced the Durham triple homicide had been solved and was now closed. He stated the family was killed by four members of the “Dixie Mafia,” a group originating out of Georgia that perpetrated a series of crimes and murders-for-hire. They are believed to have engaged in dozens of crimes across the Southeast during the 60s and 70s.
However, only one of the four men was still alive at the time of the announcement, 81-year-old Billy Wayne Davis. He has since passed away. The other alleged perpetrators were the leader of the Dixie Mafia, Billy Sunday Birt, Bobby Gene Gaddis, and Charles David Reed. The four came under suspicion when Billy Birt’s son, Shane, was doing research for a book about crimes that had taken place in Georgia, including the case his father was eventually convicted on. Billy Birt and his associates were convicted in the armed robbery and murders of Mrs. and Mrs. Oliver Reid Fleming, Sr. on December 22, 1972. The couple who was their early 70s, were tortured before eventually being strangled to death with coat hangers. Shane told law enforcement officials in White County, Georgia that he remembered his father telling him a story about killing three people in the North Carolina mountains during a snowstorm. It stood out to his father because they almost got caught trying to leave town.
When Billy Davis was questioned about the story, he confirmed he’d been the getaway driver for a hired hit in the mountains, and the other three men were the ones who entered the home that night. No official charges were filed in the Durham murders. Investigators are not certain who would have ordered the hit. Sheriff Hagaman told the Wilkes Record, “Some even suspect that the Durham’s son-in-law, Justin Troy Hall, was responsible for the hit. I would love to interview Troy Hall but Mr. Hall died on December 19, 2019, and I no longer have that option.
Ginny Durham made a public statement, saying, “I would like to thank all of the people who worked for decades on my family’s case. I know that they sacrificed many days and weekends in order to work on solving this case since 1972. “I would especially like to thank Len Hagaman, Sheriff of Watauga County, who has been involved from the beginning and was dedicated to a closure for myself and my family; Wade Colvard, SBI Special Agent; Carolynn Johnson, Captain of Investigations for Watauga County Sheriff’s Office; and Charles Whitman, SBI Special Agent, who continued to work on the case, even in retirement. I am so grateful for his help and friendship during the difficult years.
Eyewitness Accounts
In “Convoluted,” Terry Harmon shared a few eyewitness accounts of people seen near the Durham home on the night of the murder. At 8:45 p.m., a furnace repairman said he saw a 1965-66 white four-door Ford with a 1971 license plate following a green four-wheel Jeep. The two vehicles turned off Highway 105 and onto the 105 Bypass. A few minutes later, he saw both vehicles pulling out of the Westview Baptist Church parking lot and onto the bypass. This repairman thought he saw at least one man in the Ford, but there could have been more. He couldn’t tell how many people were in the Jeep. He saw the Jeep turn onto Clyde Townsend Road.
A short time later, two different residents saw a green Blazer pulled off the road just before the Westview Baptist Church. The headlights were on. They noticed three large white males standing beside the vehicle talking. Two of the men were wearing long, military style overcoats and toboggans and the other a shorter coat and toboggan. A few minutes later, these residents saw a light blue or mint green 1966-68 Pontiac Bonneville coming down the Durham’s driveway and turning onto the bypass. One of these residents could make out at least two men in the car and one woman with blonde hair or a light-colored scarf. He noticed this car pulled up behind the Blazer. I’m sure they took a special note of these vehicles because it was a snowy night, the roads were bad. One has to wonder if these were the people responsible for the murders.
What Happened to the Durham’s Son-in-Law?
I want to talk a bit about Troy Hall. I was surprised to read about the trajectory his life had taken. After divorcing Ginny, he went on to law school and became an attorney, moving to Georgia and setting up practice there. He began going by the name Justin Troy Hall. In 1979, while living outside of Atlanta, he was dating a young woman named Debbie Foster, who he’d met in Wilkes County. On January 26, 1979, the 21-year-old young woman died while trying to cross a busy, six-lane highway in DeKalb County. An SBI agent stated he thought she was fleeing Troy’s apartment when she was killed. More suspiciously, Troy was the beneficiary of a $100,000 life insurance policy on Debbie’s life. Troy worked for the federal government for several years as a prosecutor. He also was investigated for insurance fraud when a spec home he had built near Atlanta burned to the ground.
Between 1982 and 1984 he worked as an Assistant District Attorney in a six-county district Southwestern Judicial District of Georgia. However, when agents from the North Carolina SBI visited his office and asked if they could question him about the Durham murders, he refused to cooperate or take a polygraph test. After that, he was dismissed from his position as a district attorney. He set up a law practice and specialized in entertainment and sports law and was involved in several different contentious divorces after that. In one of his divorce depositions in 2012, he claimed failing health, citing late-stage Parkinson’s disease, dementia memory loss, history of hepatitis, depression, anxiety, obstructive pulmonary disease, among other ailments. In early December of 2019, his official obituary was posted by Bill Head Funeral Homes and Crematory, Inc.
It read, in part:
On December 19, 2019, Justin T. Hall, loving father of Grant Tristin Hall, passed away at the age of 68.
Justin was born on November 8, 1951, in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina to Robert and Carrie Waddell Hall. He received his law degree and practiced law for over 30 years. His life revolved around his young son Grant. Justin was an avid lover of history and was known for his quick wit and unparalleled business sense. Justin was loyal to those he loved and had an infectious smile and spirit that will be remembered by all who were fortunate enough to know him.
Justin was preceded in death by his parents, his brothers, Roy and Claude and his sister, Lois Hall Sebastian.
He is survived by the light of his life, his son, Grant Tristin Hall; sister, Dorothy Hall Jones and her husband Morris; brothers, John Hall, Ray and his wife Josey Hall; many nieces and nephews.
The obituary asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to his son’s school.
Do Spirits Haunt the Old Durham Home?
The home where the Durham family was murdered off Clyde Townsend Road is still standing and occupied by a new family. On the 50th anniversary of the murder, the current owner of the Durham home, Karen Coffey Wood, invited staff members from The Wilkes Record to tour the house. She said she and her husband bought the house in 1997, with the stigma from the murder making it a reduced price. She has never remodeled the bathroom where the bodies were found, and it still has the original lavender-colored tiles on the wall.
Wood said her daughter had seen a woman sitting on their couch in the den, dressed in white and starting at the fireplace at one point. Wood said she saw a similar apparition in her bedroom once, and has heard footsteps that can’t be explained. But she told reporters she wasn’t afraid and had no issue with the restless spirits that may also inhabit the home.
Show Sources:
Boone Bathtub Murders
Asheville Citizen Times
February 5, 1972
3 Killed in Boone; Murderers Sought
https://www.newspapers.com/image/197217886
Winston-Salem Journal
February 5, 1972
Page 1
https://www.newspapers.com/image/936959281
Page 2
https://www.newspapers.com/image/936959319
The Herald-Sun
February 12, 1972
Reward of $5,000 Offered for Clues in Boone Slayings
https://www.newspapers.com/image/787477971
Asheville Citizen-Times
February 12, 1972
Murder Reward Increased
https://www.newspapers.com/image/197237560
Winston-Salem Journal
March 28, 1972
Psychic Consulted in Boone Slayings
https://www.newspapers.com/image/937008832
April 29, 1972
Winston-Salem Journal
Police Question 4 Charged in Slayings
https://www.newspapers.com/image/937108288
Winston-Salem Journal
May 11, 1972
Men Charged in Boone Ask for Lawyers
Page 1
https://www.newspapers.com/image/938496358
Page 2
https://www.newspapers.com/image/938496373
The Charlotte Observer
June 16, 1972
2 of 4 Suspects Face Trial in Boone Killings
Evidence Lacking on Other Men
https://www.newspapers.com/image/621935569
The Asheville Times
July 11, 1972
Triple Slaying Figure Draws 5 Years for Theft
https://www.newspapers.com/image/943587990
https://thewilkesrecord.com/50-year-durham-family-murder-mystery-solved-p3716-149.htm
