Episode 114-The Murders of Bonnie Lou Irvine in Troutman and Andy Banks in Raleigh

In February of 2008, the roommate of 52-year-old Bonnie Lou Irvine, a Cornelius resident, reported the woman missing. Investigators with the Cornelius Police Department looked at her phone and e-mail records and noticed her last communication was with a man named Bernard Lamp, who was going by the name George Lamp. She’d responded to an ad he’d placed on Craigslist earlier in the month. Irvine had also sent Lamp a link to a different website where she had posted more photos of herself. Police learned the website was popular with men seeking sex with prostitutes. Police in Troutman were familiar with the suspect. He had been arrested the previous year for abducting another woman he’d met online after they met up at a local convenience store.

Irvine’s sister told police her sister had been arrested for prostitution-related charges in the past. The Cornelius Police Department called in the FBI Safe Streets Task Force, which included members of the FBI, SBI, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Departments to aid in the investigation. For two weeks, investigators kept an eye out for Irvine’s car, which was still missing. When they spotted a Volvo matching the description, they ran the tag on it, discovering the tag was registered to Bernard Lamp and was supposed to be on a Ford Contour he owned. They followed him to a service station in Troutman and when he stopped, he was arrested for a violation of his probation.

Police Find a Body in a Backyard

When they discovered he’d been staying with an acquaintance on Weathers Creek Road in Troutman, they visited the property. It didn’t take them long to find an area in the backyard that looked suspicious. After executing a search warrant, a team began digging and came across a black plastic bag with human hair showing from one end. The FBI’s Evidence Response Team took over the scene for processing.

Police arrested Lamp charged him with the murder and first-degree kidnapping of Bonnie Lou Irvine, age 52.

Investigators found Irvine’s body on a property that Bernard Lamp did not own. It belonged to a woman named Leslie Belkin, who had purchased land and had a home built on Weathers Creek Road. Belkin had also met Lamp through a personal ad on Craigslist and they had chatted online for several weeks before meeting in person. She said he had stayed with her and her daughter at the apartment she was renting in Troutman during the construction of her home. He helped her move into the house when it was ready and suggested he spend the night alone at her apartment after she moved out, so he could clean it. Belkin allowed Lamp to store some of his personal belongings in her detached garage at Weathers Creek Road and saw him burn some boxes and trash from the move in her backyard.

A Years-Long Trial Delay

Bernard Lamp remained incarcerated until his trial began almost six years later. Digital forensics played a large part in the trial. One of the witnesses for the prosecution was William Powell, the director for customer service and law enforcement relations for Craigslist. He shared that Bernard Lamp had placed three separate ads on the site. The first one, placed on February 10, 2008, was listed under “erotic” services, and said he was seeking female companionship. He described himself as a good-looking professional male. The second ad was placed on March 2, 2008, and it was seeking a mechanic. He said in the ad that he was using his girlfriend’s Volvo and needed help regarding the car’s alarm system. Lamp explained the alarm had gone off and he had used the remote to stop it, but then he couldn’t use the remote to get into the car. The Volvo was actually Irvine’s car. The third ad Lamp placed on Craiglist, March 13, 2008, was also seeking a female companion.

Prosecutors also called several different members of the FBI to the stand to discuss evidence they had uncovered during the investigation. Police had discovered some women’s clothing in the garage of Leslie Belkin’s home where Lamp was storing some of his things. Material found on the clothing appeared to be blood, but the amounts were so small they couldn’t conclusively confirm what it was. Analysts also tested hair found in the plastic bag Irvine’s body was wrapped in and hair from a black purse found in the trash of Lamp’s brother’s home. The hairs were not a positive match for either Irvine or Lamp.

Neighbors of Leslie Belkin’s had seen Lamp driving the victim’s Volvo and noticed him emptying something wrapped in a blanket or tarp out of the back of the car and into the garage right after Irvine went missing.

Lamp Found Guilty

On February 6, 2014, the jury found Bernard Lamp guilty of the first-degree murder of Bonnie Lou Irvine. They took three hours and 40 minutes to deliberate over two days. The state of North Carolina decided to seek the death penalty, and the judge began a hearing with the attorneys to see what factors the state wanted to present in support of the death penalty. The jury was not present during the discussion. The judge ruled that the kidnapping conviction in the other Iredell assault case could not be presented as a factor, but Lamp’s previous crimes in Virginia and Ohio could. Lamp blew up during the hearing, said he didn’t want his attorneys to speak for him, wanted to represent himself, and claimed innocence in the murder of Bonnie Lou Irvine.

Lamp didn’t end up firing his attorneys, and they represented him in his sentencing hearing. District attorney Sarah Kirkman and Assistant District Attorney Carrie Nitzu asked for the death penalty, explaining that Lamp’s three prior felony convictions showed a pattern of violent behavior. The prior convictions were for robbery in 1978 and 1980 in Virginia and a robbery and abduction conviction in 1989 in Ohio. They also brought up the victim’s violent manner of death. Lamp’s defense attorneys, Vince Rabil, and David Freedman, said those felonies took place years before Irvine’s murder, so there was no pattern of escalating behavior. They brought up Lamp’s childhood, with school records that called him a “confused little boy” in elementary school and a hospitalization for barbiturate poisoning at age four. Lamp’s parents were deceased so they could not be present at the trial to provide any support.

The jury sentenced Lamp to the death penalty. The death penalty had not been recommended in an Iredell County case since Andrew Ramseur received it for murdering Jennifer Vincek and Jeff Peck during a Statesville convenience store robbery in 2007. One of the main questions I had while researching this case was why it took so long for the case to go to trial. Lamp was arrested in 2008, but his case didn’t make it to trial until 2014. Part of it had to do with the fact that this was a possible death penalty trial and there haven’t been a lot of those in Iredell County.

One of the biggest factors, according to one of Lamp’s attorneys, Vince Rabil, was the wait time involved in evidence being processed by the FBI—some pieces took as long as four years. Lamp’s trial and incarceration while he waited for trial ended up totaling more than $250,000 in expenses. Lamp was shuttled back and forth between Statesville and Raleigh from the time he was arrested until the trial began. Other notable trial expenses included almost $17,000 for DNA testing, $4,000 for computer forensics, and $30,000 for one of the defense attorneys, as Lamp was proved indigent before the trial began.

In May 2016, Bernard Lamp died of natural causes in a Raleigh hospital while still on death row.

You may be thinking the same thing as me. It is really possible for a violent offender like Bernard Lamp to have committed no other crimes between the years of 1989 and 2008? He was known to have lived in different places and seemed to hop from residence to residence. He moved in with his girlfriend in Troutman not long after meeting here, and it appeared as though he was messaging other people online the whole time he was living with her. What caused Bernard Lamp to snap and kill Bonnie Irvine, or had he just been lucky enough not to get caught previously? I guess we may never know.

The Statesville Record and Landmark did extensive reporting on this case, and I would like to give a shoutout to Donna Swicegood for her excellent work in covering the case from start to finish. The television series, “Web of Lies,” featured this case on the episode titled “Mr Fix It” in 2015.

Andy Banks Goes Missing

On September 12, 2020, 39-year-old Raleigh resident William Anderson Banks, known to his friends and family as simply ‘Andy,’ disappeared after an appointment to show a car he had for sale. Banks had listed the vehicle, a 2011 silver Range Rover, for sale online. I’ve read that the car was listed on Craigslist and a site called CarGurus.com, so I’m not sure if it was listed at both places or just one. CarGurus notifies customers when a vehicle is available the meets a specific criteria. The car had about 90,000 miles on it and was listed for $15,000. Banks had a friend who lived near Cameron Village, so he left his car there, and took the Range Rover over to the nearby former K&W Cafeteria parking lot so the prospective buyer could see it around 2 p.m. that afternoon.

But his friend grew concerned when he didn’t hear back from Banks in the next few hours, and he didn’t return for his car. Texts to Banks went unanswered. His friend Carter Whitley grew concerned and worked to track where his friend’s cell phone might be. The phone was on the side of Interstate 40 in Cary, with Banks nowhere to be found. Learning that fact propelled Whitley to call 911 to report his friend missing. He was also able to gain access to Banks’s bank account through Google, and there he found communication with the potential buyer. Banks had first met with the man on September 9, and the final meeting at Cameron Village was supposed to finalize the sale.

Friends told the media that Andy Banks was a character who was well-loved by many. Originally from Gastonia, he was a lifelong N.C. State fan and had graduated from the university. He enjoyed buying and fixing up cars to sell as a side hustle, and he’d once bought a red 1970s Cadillac that he enjoyed driving around Raleigh.

The Range Rover is Discovered

Two days after he went missing, police located the missing Range Rover in an abandoned church parking lot with a cover over it just across the Virginia state line. Not long after, they told the media that based on the evidence they were gathering, Banks’s case was likely a homicide. They arrested a 34-year-old man named Justin Fernando Merritt from Danville, Virginia and charged him with robbery, larceny of a motor vehicle and possession of a firearm by convicted felon in connection with the stolen vehicle. Records showed he had three previous felony convictions. Five days after he went missing, the body of a man later identified as Andy Banks was located in tall grass in Chatham, a town just north of Danville. An autopsy showed he had been shot in the back multiple times.

A Vigil to Remember Their Friend

On Friday, September 18, Banks’s friends and family gathered for a vigil in the parking lot where he had been abducted. Approximately 200 people were in attendance, and speakers took turns telling stories about their friend, such as the fact that he always knew where to find the best beer specials on a Sunday afternoon and live the good life on Chase Rewards points. They recounted how loving, kind, and generous he was, and how he would help people move into home and offer to watch their kids, including making trips to Subway, Starbucks, and McDonalds. Friends emphasized that Andy knew how to live life to the fullest, and he wouldn’t want anyone to lose faith even in the wake of his senseless death.

Merritt’s trial began two years after the murder in Wake County. Bank’s friends and family packed the courthouse each and every day, showing their love and support for the man. Computer forensics had quickly connected Merritt to the potential sale of the car and the meetup in the K&W Parking lot. Raleigh and Danville police had worked alongside one another to quickly figure out what had happened to Banks.

One of the appalling things that was revealed during the trial was the fact that Merritt had invited his brother-in-law and niece to travel with him from Danville to Raleigh that day. His brother-in-law testified that they had taken his mother’s vehicle for the trip. When Banks arrived in the Range Rover, Merritt got out and went to take the SUV on a test drive with him. The brother-in-law and niece waited behind. When Merritt returned with the Range Rover after about a half hour, Banks was no longer with him, and Merritt didn’t explain where he was.

Police believed Merritt had pulled out a gun and shot Banks at close range sometime during the test drive. He was crouched towards the passenger-side door, likely trying to get out of the vehicle. The gun was so close to him that it singed the raincoat he was wearing at the time. Police found blood on the front seat, along with bullet holes, spent shell casings, and cleaning supplies when they searched the car. Someone had attempted to clean up blood on the front passenger seat.

After he murdered Banks, Merritt then used his phone to figure out how to return to the K&W parking lot. He likely pushed Andy’s body down into the front floorboard of the SUV so his brother-in-law wouldn’t see it when he returned to the parking lot to say the transaction was complete. He then drove the Range Rover back to Danville and placed Banks’s body on the side of the road where police later found it.

Digital Forensics Nails the Guilt of Justin Fernando Merritt

Investigators discovered Merritt had texted Banks around 3:14 p.m., saying, “Thanks for letting me check out the range again, man. Sorry we couldn’t agree on a price. I’ll send you the guy I was telling you about, info when I get back.” They believed that Banks was already dead when that text message was sent to his phone, and Merritt was trying to cover his tracks. Merritt’s defense attorneys admitted that their client was guilty, but said the murder was not premeditated. They asked why Merritt would have used his real identity when communicating with Banks if he planned to rob and murder him. I think that’s a question a lot of people had when they heard about this case.

Merritt declined to take the stand in his own defense. His attorney did not present any evidence to try and persuade jurors of his innocence. Instead, she used her 10-minute closing argue to claim that Merritt had simply panicked when he killed Andy Banks.

A jury took four days to find Merritt guilty of first-degree murder, and the judge sentenced him to life in prison. He then made a statement and addressed Banks’s family, saying, “I would like to apologize to you guys for any hurt, any pain, any sorrow or anguish that I’ve caused you. Please hear me when I say, this was never my intention. Never was. I just want to say I’m so sorry. So sorry.” Andy’s family members also offered their victim impact statements.

This case is frustrating because by all accounts, Andy Banks did a lot of things right when he set up the meeting to sell his car. It was something he had done in the past with no issues. He had already met the buyer once and obviously felt comfortable meeting him again. He chose a very public place with a lot of traffic and people nearby for the second meeting. He told a friend where he was going. Unfortunately, Merritt abused his trust and decided a $15,000 car was worth taking a life for.

Show Sources:

Bonnie Lou Irvine

https://www.starnewsonline.com/story/news/2008/03/23/web-encounter-death-linked/30444189007

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/may/30/iredell-county-death-row-inmate-dies-of-natural-ca

https://claimyourinnocence.org/tag/bonnie-lou-irvine

The Charlotte Observer

March 20, 2008

Body confirmed as missing woman, 52

https://www.newspapers.com/image/632498017

The Charlotte Observer

March 19, 2008

Man with abduction conviction charged in woman’s death