In the summer of 1967, a 19-year-old young woman named Brenda Holland was excited to take a job with the Lost Colony outdoor drama on the Outer Banks. But only a month after the Western Carolina native arrived, she went missing late one night after a date with a fellow cast member. When her body was discovered in the sound six days later, investigators thought they had an open and shut case. But to this day, the murder remains unsolved. Today...
North Carolina native and actor Andy Griffith got his start in The Lost Colony twenty years before 19-year-old Brenda Holland went missing, first playing a soldier, and then later the character of Sir Walter Raleigh. After the nightly performances he would perfect his comedic routines at a local club, before eventually finding success in Hollywood and The Andy Griffith Show. Now in its 88th season, the outdoor drama The Lost Colony tells the...
In episode 32, “Missing Teen Girls in North Carolina,” I shared the story a young woman named Sherri Lee Truesdale. Sherri’s story is another one of those cases that doesn’t have a lot of background information because she went missing such a long time ago, but family members have not given up on the idea of resolution. On June 13, 1970, 14-year-old Sherri left her home in Winston-Salem around 11:30 a.m. and took the bus to a local...
In the 1990s, Horry, Georgetown, and Marion counties experienced a rise in bank robberies. According to the Sun News, 16 bank robberies occurred in the area in 1997. Only about 18 percent of money was able to be recovered, and investigators found it thanks to dye packs that had been thrown into the bags of cash. The FBI stated that the robberies seemed to be spur-of-the-moment jobs for quick cash, noting that bank robbery is a very high-risk...
In this podcast, we cover a lot of dark topics around missing people and other true crime. For this week, I wanted to do something a little more lighthearted. It still centers around a disappearance in the Carolinas, but in this case it was the disappearance of money, and a lot of it. In 2016, a movie called “Masterminds,” which was based on the famous Loomis Fargo Robbery in Charlotte, was released. The movie is a comedy, starring several...
A few years ago, I was meeting with a few likeminded people in my community to discuss the details of Lue Cree Overcash Westmoreland’s still-unsolved murder from 1937. One of those people was Shellie Taylor, who works with the Iredell County Public Library. Of course we immediately began chatting about a few other mysterious stories she had uncovered as part of her work as an archivist. I knew she would be the perfect guest for the podcast,...
In 1986, 28-year-old Mary Kathryn Ennis and her husband were separated, and she was living alone with her 7-year-old son, Andy in Hillsborough. Many of her neighbors described her as being a devoted and caring mother. Her neighbor two doors down, James W. Jones, said that he had “never seen a woman more devoted to her son” than Mary. Her landlord described her as “a nice, sweet person with a pleasant attitude” and said that he loved...
In 1999, fresh out of Harvard University, Helen Zuman began seeking out a place where she could practice communal living and learn more about organic farming and homesteading. The place turned out to be Zendik Farm in Western North Carolina. When she left five years later, she slowly realized the leader had been operating the farm as a cult. Listen to episode here. Learn more about Helen Zuman Check out Helen's memoir, Mating in...
On July 9, 1988, 30-year-old High Point, North Carolina resident Sandra Coulthard passed away at Duke University Medical Center. She’d been sick for about six months with vomiting, diarrhea, vomiting, and numbness of her feet and fingers. Doctors had diagnosed her with Guillain-Barre (Ghee-yan Bah-ray) syndrome and had been treating her for it, but her symptoms never improved. Guillain-Barre syndrome is a rare neurological disorder that...
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 1 in 5 people experience mental illness each year. Their website states: A mental health condition isn’t the result of one event. Research suggests multiple, linking causes. Genetics, environment, and lifestyle influence whether someone develops a mental health condition. A stressful job or home life makes some people more susceptible, as do traumatic life events. Biochemical processes and...
