On September 29, 1981, a gruesome murder scene greeted law enforcement officers off Knightner Road in Columbia, South Carolina. The headline in “The Morning News” that day read, “Four people were shot to death and two others wounded Tuesday in what authorities called a “vicious massacre” in a home equipped with an altar for the practice of black magic. The murders occurred in a well-maintained white brick two-story house with yellow...
This past Monday our country celebrated Veterans Day, which is the federal holiday created to honor military veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces. A sad note is that according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, approximately 21,000 veterans still await burials, some dating all the way back to the Civil War. In 2007, a nonprofit called the Missing in America Project began working to provide those burials. There are numerous remains that end up...
On Nov. 1, 1933, around 10 p.m., the city of Charleston, S.C. was stunned when two passersby discovered a 64-year-old woman named Mary Ravenel gravely injured on Meeting Street, just north of Water Street near her home. Mary was on her way home from eating dinner at the Fort Sumter Hotel with friends. Thinking the woman had been the victim of a hit-and-run accident, the two young woman who discovered her hailed a man driving by so they could...
On the afternoon of Nov. 2 2015, Amy Vilardi left her home on Refuge Road in Pendleton, South Carolina and went to visit her mom and stepfather, Cathy and Mike Scott, who lived next door with their two elderly mothers. The Scotts lived in a double wide mobile home and Amy and her husband Ross lived on the same property in a single-wide. Amy entered the home to find a horrifying scene. 58-year-old Mike Scott, 60-year-old Cathy Scott, 80-year-old...
Rachel Workman owns Ghosts of Davidson, a ghost tour located in Davidson, North Carolina, just a few miles outside of Lake Norman. She’s lived in the area with her husband Chris and their three kids for more than 20 years, and when the opportunity to take over Ghosts of Davidson fell into their laps, they took it. Ghosts of Davidson is a 90-minute stroll through downtown Davidson, a small and charming town that is full of local legends,...
October is the designated month for bringing awareness to Domestic Violence, but it is a topic I believe we should be talking about year round, as it still remains a prevalent issue in our society. I’ve discussed several cases tied to domestic violence in this podcast, including Nancy Cooper, from Episode 18, Missing runners in North Carolina, Patty Jo Pulley from Episode 45, Across State Lines, Maryann and Elaine Boczkowski in Episode 48,...
On April 4, 2015, 28-year-old Ashley Pegram, who was the mother of three small children, went missing after making plans to spend the evening with a man she’d met on a dating app, specifically on one called “Meet Me.” Pegram had been devastated after losing her boyfriend in a car accident a few months earlier, and was lonely and looking for someone to talk to online. She’d begun corresponding with a man named Edward Bonilla a few weeks...
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...
This week marks National Suicide Prevention Week, which is an annual campaign designed to educate the general public about suicide prevention and the warning signs of suicide. This is a topic that resonates with so many of us. Chances are, you have a close friend or family member who has died by suicide or has had to receive counseling for their mental health. Nathaniel and Irene Witherspoon On January 4, 2024, residents in Franklin, North...
Located in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Appalachian State University is a four-year-college that also has a satellite campus in Hickory. The school was founded 125 years ago when Dr. B.B. Dougherty, his brother D.D. Dougherty, and D.D.’s wife, Lillie began dreaming of a way to help children in the state participate in educational opportunities in the heart of the mountains. App State began as Watauga Academy, progressed to the...
