A listener recently e-mailed me an article link about a cold case out of Catawba County. When I started reading about the unsolved murder of 13-year-old Isis Dee Dee Dawkins, I realized there was a connected story about a series of murders and suspicious deaths that took place during the summer of 1992, and it resulted in one man residing in a bus at a local junkyard being convicted of murder, and another local man being convicted of two...
Around 4 a.m. on May 31, 2003, 21-year-old rookie police officer Jeff Postell was making a second run patrolling the area behind the Valley Village shopping center in the town of Murphy, which at the time had under 2,000 residents, when he noticed a man ducking behind some milk crates at the Sav-A-Lot. Postell took a closer look because he thought he had interrupted a burglary in progress. When he noticed the man had a black object in his hand,...
On July 27, 1996, a bomb exploded in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta during the Summer Olympic Games. Alice Hawthorne, a 44-year-old businesswoman and resident of Albany, Georgia, had decided at the last-minute to take her 14-year-old daughter Fallon to the celebration. She loved Atlanta and often traveled there to shop and attend events. She died as a result of injuries from multiple penetrating metal fragments from the bomb. Her daughter...
I discussed wilderness therapy camps and Trails Carolina in Lake Toxaway specifically in Episode 88. Trails Carolina was founded in 2008, with the belief that a wilderness setting enhances the benefits of therapy. It accepts children ages 10-17 on wilderness expeditions, and therapists are supposed to meet with the campers on a weekly basis. The program bills itself as helping minors with conditions such as depression, anxiety, anger management...
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...
Last month, the trial of 62-year-old Christopher Palmiter, the stepfather of missing Cornelius girl Madalina Cojocari, began. He was charged with failing to report eleven-year-old Madalina missing. Madalina’s mother, 39-year-old Diana Cojocari, pleaded guilty of the same charge last month and has already been released for time served. I’ve discussed this case in Episode 52 and a few weeks ago in Episode 99. Palmiter chose to have a jury...
It’s no secret that children and young people are a vulnerable sector of the population when it comes to crime and missing persons cases. We’ve profiled several different children on “Missing in the Carolinas.” In fact, this week there was news related to the case of Madalina Cojocari, an 11-year-old girl who went missing from my community in November of 2022. I talked about Madalina’s disappearance in Episode 52: Not Reported...
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...
Twenty-three-year-old Andy Sigmon was last seen on April 5, 2016, and while his family knows he is probably not still alive, they remain determined to bring their son home. Here is what we know about the circumstances surrounding Andy’s disappearance. He left his place of work at Renwood Mills in Newton, North Carolina on April 4, 2016 on or around 11 p.m., when his shift was supposed to end. Between 5 to 5:30 a.m., an officer with the Davie...
Over the years, there have been several different murders that have taken place involving students and staff at the University of North Carolina. In January of 1995, Wendell Williamson, a student at the UNC Law School, wounded a police officer and killed two bystanders when he opened fire on Henderson Street. In March of 2008, Student Body President Eve Carson was abducted, robbed, and murdered by two local men with extensive criminal...
