On the morning of Sunday, April 15, 1973, Virginia Olson, known as “Ginger” to her friends, awoke on a chilly morning in the Craig Dormitory, located on the campus of UNCA, nestled in the mountains of Western North Carolina. A sophomore dramatics major, Ginger was known for enjoying her alone time. She liked to read, go on long walks, paint and sketch, and play her guitar. Ginger had grown up in McLean, Virginia, but graduated from high...
Forty years ago, Sharon Beatrice Jones was murdered on the campus of Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina over spring break. Despite the police interviewing numerous suspects and administering polygraph tests, the case almost immediately went cold, and what's more perplexing is the small digital footprint involving details of the crime. Is there still a way to find justice in this case? This episode was written by true crime writer...
On November 22, 1984, a four-year-old little boy vanished in the rain from his parents’ home. Jeremy Grice lived with his mother and step-father, Donna and Nick Arrington, and his 10-month-old sister Christy. His step-father put Jeremy to bed the night before while his mom worked second shift at a local manufacturing plant that made thermostats. She arrived home from her shift around 1 a.m. and went to sleep. Her husband Nick got up around 7...
Since 2017, the DNA Doe Project has worked on more than 200 cases of unidentified remains. With the work of their leadership, countless volunteers, advances in technology, the organization was able to make some of the very first identifications through investigative genetic genealogy. They’ve been able to identify people with dementia who went missing and died in another state, away from family members. They’ve been able to identify victims...
In the early 1990s, a string of rapes and murders occurred in East Charlotte. Because the killer used different methods and cleaned up crime scenes, investigators had no idea the murders were connected until he escalated and got sloppy, stealing items from the victims, and leaving evidence behind. Community members became convinced the murders went unsolved because they involved working class Black women, many of whom were young mothers. But...
On November 10, 2014, a 17-year-old young man named Alec Lansing went missing after he left a group from Trails Carolina, an organization in Western North Carolina that offers wilderness therapy for young adults and children. At the time, Alec, who was from Atlanta, Georgia, had been camping with a group off NC 107 in the forest near Heady Mountain Church Road. A search for Alec involved the U.S. Forest Service, the North Carolina Highway...
Today I’m talking about a few different true crime documentaries and series that I think fans of this podcast would enjoy. I tried to make selections from a few different streaming services, since I know most of us don’t have access to everything available. I’ll be discussing the Hulu series “The Lesson is Murder,” the Netflix documentary “American Nightmare,” and the Max documentary “They Called Him Mostly Harmless.” The...
Pamela Denise Durham, known as Denise to her friends, was a 16-year-old high school student at East Henderson High School. She lived in East Flat Rock, North Carolina. According to an article that ran in the February 15, 1981 edition of The Asheville Citizen Times, Denise Durham was a model student. She was the secretary of the student council, an honors program student, and a band member who played the clarinet. Her life was going smoothly,...
What is a body broker and how do they operate? According to an investigative series by the news organization Reuters, body brokers are also known as non-tissue transplant banks. These banks are different from the organ and tissue industry, which is highly regulated. No federal law currently governs the sale of cadavers or body parts for use in research or education. In 2004, a federal health advisory panel called for regulation of body brokers....
A man from Fayetteville gets a ride from a co-worker and is never seen again, until a religious awakening with a murderer brings the secrets to light. Another young man from Florida takes a job out of state while he figures out his next move, abruptly exits his truck while riding with co-workers he doesn’t know very well in North Carolina in the early hours of the morning, and his never seen again. And a young woman from North Carolina heads...
