In the area I live in there’s a lake, also known as the largest man-made, freshwater lake in North Carolina. But before it became Lake Norman, the area was a village containing textile mills, homes, and family farms called Long Island. According to the Visit Mooresville website, in the early 1900s, James Buchanan Duke and his successors at Duke Power began purchasing land from farmers around the Catawba and Wateree Rivers in preparation for a...
When I was a teenager growing up in a small town about 20 minutes outside of Asheville, the Asheville Mall was my home away from home. I spent many weekends there wandering in and out of the stores and snacking at Corn Dog 7 and Sbarro. I later went on to work both at the mall and the movie theater across the street. At the time, I had no idea a 23-year-old woman named Pamela Murray had been abducted from the mall in the late 1980s and murdered...
Thirty-five years ago, a Durham woman called 911 in the pre-dawn hours to report that she’d accidentally shot her husband with a gun he was keeping underneath his pillow. While police thought it was strange that someone was sleeping with a loaded weapon, the wife’s explanation seemed plausible. After all, she was a gainfully employed woman who attended church regularly with her husband and two sons. It wasn’t until they learned that the...
Madalina Cojocari’s story has been all over our local news, social media, national news, and it’s been a bit surreal to drive by the middle school a mile from my house and see news vans set up to record b-roll footage as reporters have tried to keep the community updated. I’ve been hesitant to discuss the case because the details about her mother and step-father’s behavior sound very similar to two other cases in North Carolina I’m...
On December 10, 1997, newspapers across the country ran a syndicated article titled “A tree grows in North Carolina.” The article explained how the fragrant fraser fir trees, with their bluish tone and soft, silvery needles, thrive in the climate of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The reporter, Wade Rawlins, interviewed Ron Hudler, of Hudler Carolina Tree Farms. It was the heart of tree selling season and Hudler explained he had a customer...
Have you watched the HBO Max three-part documentary, "Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty?" Host Renee Roberson shares her thoughts on the case and the recent release. Listen to the episode here. Because this case is so multi-faceted, and begins with a boating accident that happened in February of 2019, there has been plenty of material to feature on news networks. But I feel the most recent episode of Dateline, “Dark Waters,” and the HBO Max...
Brittanee Drexel’s story reached its final conclusion this past summer, and it left many who had been following it quite surprised. On May 16, 2022, the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office held a press conference where they announced they had uncovered the remains of Brittanee Drexel in a wooded area on the outskirts of Georgetown County. Dental records confirmed her identity. They announced that Raymond Moody (age) had been charged with...
People die in accidents every day. Children lose their parents, partners lose their spouses and significant others. But when a person loses two or more spouses to tragic accidents, law enforcement starts to get suspicious. This was the case with a man named Tim Boczkowski, who lost two different wives to drowning accidents at their family homes, all within four years of each other. The first death occurred in Greensboro, North Carolina, in...
When 20-year-old Lue Cree Overcash Westmoreland retired for the evening at the home of her husband’s family on Jan. 19, 1937, no one expected the young bride of only two months would be murdered by the next morning. Lue Cree’s husband, Herman Westmoreland, lived in an apartment during the week so he could be close to his job at Cascade Mills in Mooresville. Lue Cree was staying at the family home in the Amity Hill area of Iredell County....
Christina Maria Matos Christina Maria Matos was just trying to help out a friend, but the generosity she was so well known for likely caused her death. Matos had just turned 20 and was living in an apartment in Raleigh, N.C. and working as a server in a couple of different restaurants. Last semester she had taken courses at nearby Wake Tech Community College. Her parents spoke to her on her birthday, Fri., April 2, 2021, and she was excited to...
