A young man shows signs of violence against women at a young age and is sent to a detention center. There he charms an employee who does not realize how dangerous he will later become. This man will eventually murder four women in three different states, and that may not be the full extent of his victims. What was it about this man that was so charming that his victims never realized the depths of his depravity until it was too late? He was...
November is Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month, so for this episode I wanted to focus on cases that involve senior citizens. Alzheimer’s is a progressive, deadly brain disease for which there is no cure, and it is not a normal part of healthy aging, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. The site explains that researchers are still working to discover the root cause of the disease, but it is widely believed to be due to a buildup of...
When I was researching upcoming book releases on NetGalley this past summer, I noticed Mandy Matney had a memoir coming out about her involvement with the Alex Murdaugh case. I immediately requested the book and was excited to get an advance copy of it. I had listened to her show, “The Murdaugh Murders Podcast” and knew that she had worked in the local media around South Carolina. I wanted to get her take on how she first found out about...
In 2021 I discussed several cold cases involving indigenous women and girls, including the murder of 5-year-old Brittany Locklear, who was kidnapped and later found murdered in Hoke County. If you’d like to learn more about that case and more, check out Episode 29 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in North Carolina, Part 1. Episode 32, Missing Teen Girls in North Carolina, included the story of 13-year-old Native American teen Donna...
Listen to an interview with Chris Stonestreet, a North Carolina author and historian who has researched the Lue Cree Overcash Westmoreland cold case extensively.
In 2004, the President of the United States and Congress have dedicated this month for the public and private sectors to work together to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity. According to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, this initiative has grown into a collaborative effort between government industry to enhance cybersecurity awareness, encourage actions by the public to reduce online risk, and generated...
For many years, before streaming services became the norm, made-for-tv movies were the bread and butter of network television’s advertising revenue. Those networks often relied on true crime books and journalists to help find ideas for their latest projects. In the case of the state of North Carolina, there have been many of these network movie events that have featured crimes that occurred here. In fact, I was reading one article where a...
If you’ll remember, in Episode 29, I discussed the unsolved murders of three different women in Lumberton, North Carolina. These were not isolated incidents, unfortunately. In 2018, the community was shaken when a teenage girl was abducted in broad daylight in front of her home. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare. Like many junior high students on a weekday, Hania Noelia Aguilar was waiting to get a ride to school from her family on the...
Last week a graduate student entered an academic lab on the University of North Carolina campus, shooting and killing a respected professor, resulting in an hours-long lockdown of the campus. The student was arrested a short time later and the motive for the murder has not yet been revealed. In 1995, a law student at the same university headed towards campus with an assault rifle, shooting at random passersby and murdering two innocent people....
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....
