In 1980, a memoir titled “Michelle Remembers” chronicled a woman’s experience of childhood torture inflicted by a satanic cult. Canadian resident Michelle Smith recovered these memories, which allegedly occurred over a 14-month period when she was five years old, while working with her psychiatrist Larry Pazder. Michelle and Larry did an extensive media and book tour where they talked about the memories Michelle had uncovered after hours...
My family recently returned from a vacation in the High Country area of North Carolina. The High Country includes a wide array of places such as Beech Mountain, Boone, Blowing Rock, Linville Falls, West Jefferson, Sparta, Wilkesboro. We had a fantastic time and made sure to fill our days with outdoor activities. We did a relaxing trip down the New River on inner tubes, visited Grandfather Mountain, and hiked several different local trails. My...
On July 25,1990, 41-year-old Pamela Hoy had dinner with her husband Fred Hoy at a Burlington restaurant, and then went home and packed her gray Dodge van with her clothes and grooming tables, exercise runs, and crates. Pam raised and showed Italian greyhounds and was preparing for a trip that would take her to South Carolina the next day to a competition. Pam had plans to take her 11-year-old daughter on that trip. She went back inside the...
The murder of Rachel Crook is one of the oldest cold cases in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, if not the oldest. Rachel was a 71-year old-woman who originated from Alabama, and the daughter of Rev. Davey Crockett Crook, a confederate general. She was well-educated, having attended Vanderbilt University. She worked as a teacher in high schools and at Lucy Cobb College. She went on to get a master’s degree in mathematics from the Alabama...
Carrie Wikerson and Jean Fewel On February 22, 1984, 7-year-old Carrie Wilkerson failed to report to school at Frank Porter Graham Elementary in Carrboro. That morning, firefighters investigating a fire at the Rocky Brook Trailer Park off South Greensboro Street discovered the body of Carrie in the bedroom closet of her stepmother Norma Shivers’ home. Carrie was the birth daughter of Shivers’ first husband, and she had stayed with her...
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...
On January 13, 2021, an incident of workplace violence at a manufacturing plant in Hickory, North Carolina resulted in the shooting death of a 51-year-old woman. The shooter, also a female, then left the premises, along with her husband, and evaded law enforcement for more than six months. Immediately following the murder, the victim’s family was heartbroken and outraged that more was not done to protect their loved one at her place of...
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...
Listen to an interview with Chris Stonestreet, a North Carolina author and historian who has researched the Lue Cree Overcash Westmoreland cold case extensively.
