Who doesn't? These murders are among North Carolina's greatest unsolved mysteries. (2023)

For decades, criminal minds in this country have been better at killing. In 2016, nearly 40% of murder and manslaughter cases went unsolved, according to the FBI.

This “lack of closure,” as many call it, causes pain for the families of the victims and frustration for investigators, who sometimes back down without being able to definitively say who was responsible for the violent death of a citizen that happened on their watch. .

For the general public, unsolved deaths are an endless source of mystery.

Here are some of the memorable North Carolina cases that have never been marked "closed."

The Valentine's Day Murders

What happened: On February 12, 1971, 20-year-old nursing student Patricia Mann of Sanford and Jesse McBane, 19-year-old state student Jesse McBane of Pittsboro disappeared after attending a Valentine's Day dance at the School of Watts Infirmary in Durham. , where the man was a student.

The couple were high school sweethearts and went to a parking lot near the Croasdaile neighborhood to park after prom. The police assume that they were abducted there.

Thirteen days after they went missing, a surveyor found their bodies in a remote wooded area in northwest Durham, just inside the Orange County border. His hands were tied and they were both tied back to back on opposite sides of a tree. Investigators believe they were tortured before being strangled to death. There was no evidence of sexual assault.

The investigation: Detectives from the Orange and Durham County Sheriff's Offices, the Durham Police Department and the State Bureau of Investigation worked on the case, but they didn't always share the information they obtained. The case has gone cold.

Recent Developments: Orange County Sheriff's investigators Tim Horne and Dawn Hunter resumed the case in 2010 and made significant progress, eventually closing in on a prime suspect: a former Durham doctor who worked at Watts Hospital (who recently retired and moved from Durham). 🇧🇷

In June this year, the locally produced podcast The Long Dance brought the 46-year-old's murder and investigative efforts to a broader audience, leading to more leads and witnesses. Detectives also received offers from outside agencies to use advanced DNA recovery methods to analyze small amounts of DNA on the rope used as a murder weapon.

If you want to learn more about this case, The Long Dance podcast is a fantastic deep dive and the most comprehensive work on the victims, suspects and investigation. You can watch episodes where you downloaded podcasts or at thelongdancepodcast.com.

If you have any questions, please contact the Orange County Sheriff's Office at 919-644-3050. - BC

End of innocence in a college town

What happened: Suellen Evans had just started at UNC in the summer of 1965, a 21-year-old freshman trying to get into a few extra classes before the regular school year began. At the time, UNC had just 12,419 students, less than half its current enrollment. The women, who made up less than a quarter of the student body, could still be expelled for violating the curfew.

On Friday, July 30, Evans left class just before noon, stopped at Old Well to talk to a friend, went to Alumni Hall to find a teacher, and then returned to his room in Cobb Dorm. He had to pack up his things and get ready to go to Mooresville for the weekend.

Evans took a shortcut through the Coker Arboretum and was near the Raleigh Street exit when a man grabbed her from behind and dragged her into a bush. Evans screamed and struggled, drawing the attention of a nearby student and nun who rushed to help. One of them saw a man put his arm around Evan's legs just before he ran away.

When one of the women asked if she was hurt, Evans said no, but said the man tried to rape her. "I think I'm going to pass out," she said. She passed out and died. They cut her throat and stabbed her through the heart.

She was the first UNC student to be murdered on campus since women were admitted in 1897.

The investigation: With the help of the State Criminal Police Office, police arrested five possible suspects in the evening and released them after questioning. As late as 1997, according to a report in The News & Observer, police conducted a lie detector test on one of the original prime suspects, who passed. Another prime suspect was already dead.

After the murder, about 200 male students helped police scrub the arboretum for the 4- to 6-inch knife believed to have been used. It was never found. Over time, police said they questioned more than 100 possible suspects.

Recent Developments: There has been no useful evidence in the case for decades.

If you know anything: Contact Chapel Hill-Carrboro-UNC Crimestoppers at 919-942-7515 or email crimetoppers-chcunc.org. --MQ

hogtied no highland

What happened: When snow began to accumulate during a winter storm on the night of February 3, 1972, Troy Hall said he received a muffled phone call from his mother-in-law, Virginia Durham, saying a group of men were there. she with them she had her husband and her son in another room in her house near the NC 105 bypass on the west side of Boone.

Hall later told investigators that he asked his wife, Ginny, if her mother played a prank on him. Despite the weather, the Halls decided to move in with Virginia Durham, 44, her husband Bryce, 50, and her son Bobby Joe, 19, while they attended Appalachian State University.

The Halls' car wouldn't start, so they asked a neighbor to give them a ride. When they arrived, Ginny Hall stayed in the car while her husband and her neighbor walked up the hill to the house. Inside, they found the three bodies with their hands tied behind their backs and their bodies lying on the edge of a bathtub filled with water.

The investigation: An autopsy revealed that Virginia Durham was strangled with a rope. Her husband and son were strangled and then drowned. The phone went off and the receiver fell to the floor. The home had been ransacked, but a bag of cash from an unpaid bank deposit at the Bryce Durham Buick dealership in town was still on the ground.

Due to the storm, Bryce Durham drove home from his dealership in a 4x4. The car was not at the house when the Halls arrived. Police found him abandoned 3 miles away with a pillowcase containing cutlery that had been taken from the house.

According to a 2015 Watauga Democratic report, police arrested four men but later dropped the charges.

Recent developments: The Watauga County Sheriff's Office said it checks fingerprints found at crime scenes against a federal database every year, but found no match. In 1974, SBI's new Unsolved Murders team made the case a priority. In 1994, investigators asked a judge to exhume the body of a man who had died in 1978 to see if there was a matching fingerprint. The exhumation never took place.

If you know something: Contact the Watauga County Sheriff's Office at highcountrycrimestoppers.com or call 828-268-6959. --MQ

A brutal beating in Chapel Hill

What happened: On the morning of September 7, 2012, Faith Hedgepeth, a UNC student in her 20s and a member of Hollister's Haliwa-Saponi tribe, was found murdered in The Hawthorne in the View apartment she shared with her roommate. Karena Rosario in Chapel Hill. Rosário and her friend Marisol Rangel discovered the body.

The investigation: The Chapel Hill Police Department said between 1,800 and 2,000 people were interviewed in connection with the case and more than 100 DNA samples were collected. In a 2016 article published in The News & Observer, Chapel Hill Police Chief Chris Blue said the number of legitimate suspects is "closer to 10."

Early in the investigation, police focused on several men, including two of Rosario's ex-boyfriends: Eriq Takoy Jones IV, who was ordered to stay away from Rosario's home under a protection order; and Brandon Edwards, who dated Rosario but was also friends with Hedgepeth. Text messages were exchanged between Edward's phone and Hedgepeth's phone the day his body was discovered.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS: Police have released a photo of a bloody Bacardi rum bottle they believe to be the murder weapon, along with a photo of a fast food bag with the words "I AM NOT A STUPID BITCH" and "JEOUS." The bag was found on the bed next to Hedgepeth's body. Lt. Celisa Lehew was named lead investigator on the case in 2016.

In April 2018, investigators from the Investigation Discovery program, Breaking Homicide, reviewed the evidence in the case. After consulting independent analysts and experts, they concluded that they believe the key to uncovering the case lies in Rosario, Hedgepeth's roommate. "We believe that Karena Rosario is a strong person of interest based on her behavior, based on the facts and circumstances, based on the text messages," Derrick Levasseur said in an interview with N&O.

If you know anything: Contact Chapel Hill-Carrboro-UNC Crimestoppers at 919-942-7515 or email crimetoppers-chcunc.org. - BC

"Death of a Pinehurst Princess"

What happened: Pinehurst was an island of prosperity in 1935 in the midst of the national economic disaster of the Great Depression. Elva Idesta Statler, 22, the adopted daughter of the founder of one of America's first successful hotel chains, was living there when she met Henry Bradley Davidson Jr., 42, a divorced man whose own family had lost their money. .

Statler and Davidson were married in early 1935, and Elva traveled to Boston to make a will naming her new husband as recipient of her estate, including the estate of her parents, who had died years earlier.

The honeymoon had barely ended when she was found dead on February 27 in the garage of the house the couple rented. Her partially clad body was slumped over the doorframe of her 1934 Packard and the garage reeked of exhaust fumes, according to The Pilot of Southern Pines.

The Investigation: Reporters and photographers came from across the country to cover the death and the subsequent investigation. Questioning was inconclusive as to whether Elva was murdered, committed suicide, or was the victim of a spectacular accident. Davidson was never charged, but a year later, Elva's family fought hard to try to void her will to prevent her from receiving the money.

Recent Developments: In 2010, Southern Pines Pilot editor Steve Bouser published Death of a Pinehurst Princess about the case of Moore County resident Diane McLellan. McLellan went to Bouser after finding an old photograph of news hunters meeting at Pinehurst in February 1935 and says he was obsessed with it. McLellan did extensive research on the case, and Bouser did some more.

If you know anything: Contact the Pinehurst Police Department's Whistleblowing Hotline at 910-420-1654. --MQ

The murder that led to Ethen's Law

What happened: In the early morning of June 14, 2007, Jennifer "Jenna" Kathleen Nielsen, 22, a married mother of two, was stabbed to death behind the AmeriKing Food Mart and Exxon station at the intersection of Lake Wheeler Road and Centennial Boulevard. in Raleigh, across from the State Farmers Market.

Nielsen, who was 8 months pregnant at the time of her murder, was a newsboy who brought USA Today newspapers to the station. A newsboy for The News & Observer discovered her body and called 911 just before 5 a.m. The police believe that she was killed around 3 or 4 in the morning. She was stabbed in the neck and her body was found partially clothed.

Jenna's husband, Tim Nielsen, was home with the couple's two children at the time of the murder.

The investigation: Police found a bloody knife and some clothing near where Nielsen's body was found, along with DNA. They combed nearby homeless encampments and posted a sketch of a man they called a person of interest.

A $15,000 reward has also been offered for information leading to an arrest. A year after the murder, police said they had contacted 700 people and investigated nearly 1,000 leads related to the case.

The story has been featured on several true crime television shows, including America's Most Wanted.

Recent Developments: The latest news on this case came in 2011 when the North Carolina General Assembly passed the Ethen Act, named after Nielsen's unborn child. The law allows prosecutors to charge offenders with two counts of murder, manslaughter or assault on a pregnant woman.

If you know one thing: Nielsen's family has created a website with information about the case, including coverage. There is also a way to submit suggestions through the website: Justice4jenna.org. Contact the Raleigh Police Department's Reporting Hotline at 919-227-6220 or CrimeStoppers at Crime Stoppers at 919-834-4357. - BC

The murder of the lost colony

What happened: After her freshman year at what was then Campbell College, 19-year-old Brenda Joyce Holland of Canton went to Manteo to spend the summer of 1967 working as a make-up artist on the set of The Lost Colony. She rented a room in a town house.

On the night of July 1, he was on the show with a showgirl named Danny Barber. On July 2, she did not show up for work. Police and volunteers searched for days until her body was found July 6 in Albemarle Sound, near the fishing village of Mashoes. They had strangled her.

The Investigation: According to journalist John Railey, who obtained a copy of the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation on the case, and which has written extensively about it this year, police have largely focused on Barber as a suspect. Barber first told investigators that he had driven Holland home that night, but later said the truth was that he fell asleep after they got to her house, and she must have left after 2 a.m. and his to have gone home.

Around the same time, Dr. Linus Edwards, Manteo's only dentist at the time, got into a heated argument with his wife, which witnesses say was common because Edwards was a combative heavy drinker. Her wife ran away from home because, she later said, he threatened to kill her. He got out in the car and looked for her.

Some investigators in the case suspected that Edwards saw Holland on his way home and, since it was dark, drunk and perhaps coming up behind him, he mistook her for his wife and punched her before realizing he had the wrong person. .

After their divorce, Edwards's then-wife told several people, including a reporter for The News & Observer in 1997, that Edwards had confessed to her that he had killed the girl.

Edwards shot up his house in 1971. Police said they did not find any notes.

Recent Developments: Railey's writings about the murder led the SBI to allow a cold case detective to determine if there was enough evidence left to run further DNA testing to try to solve the case. In July, the SBI said the search had been unsuccessful.

If you know anything: Contact the N.C. Cold Case Unit. State Bureau of Investigation at 800-334-3000. --MQ

Murder or suicide at the Reynolds mansion?

What happened: In July 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, Americans slipped briefly from their own troubles to the sordid misfortunes of an impossibly wealthy Southern family whose charming heir had been mysteriously shot through the head.

Zachary Smith Reynolds, known as Smith, was the youngest of four children born to Richard Joshua Reynolds and his wife, Katharine Smith Reynolds. R.J., founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. of Winston-Salem, was 30 years older than his wife, who was also his first cousin.

RJ Reynolds died in 1918 when Smith was just 6 years old. Katharine died six years later, leaving the children in the care of an uncle and aunt. All of Reynolds' children were supposed to inherit millions, but not until they were 28 years old.

Smith Reynolds dropped out of school as a teenager to follow his fascination with flying and became one of the first licensed pilots in the country. At the age of 18 he married Anne Cannon of the Cannon Mills textile mill family. They had a daughter before divorcing in November 1931.

Six days later, he married comic book singer and Broadway actress Libby Holman. Smith, 20, and Holman, 28, moved into Reynolda House, the 60-bedroom Winston-Salem estate their parents had built.

On July 5, 1932, the couple hosted a gathering at the mansion, and reports at the time said that most of the guests returned home after hours of partying with fake alcoholic beverages. In a story for the Virginian pilot in the 1980s, veteran North Carolina reporter Mason Peters wrote that Reynolds and Holman got into an argument that night, possibly over an alleged flirtation between Holman and his friend and Reynolds assistant Albert. "Ab" Walker, he was at home.

Just after midnight, a single shot from a .32 caliber handgun was heard in the master bedroom on the second floor. Holman and Walker took Reynolds to the hospital, where he died a few hours later.

The inquest: The death was originally ruled a suicide, but Holman was called before the coroner's jury, where she said she remembered the gun being pointed at Reynolds' head and remembered him falling on top of her on the bed, but little else . In August, the jury indicted Holman, who was pregnant, and Walker with first-degree murder.

The charges were dropped after the family indicated they would not oppose it because it would be difficult to prove whether Reynolds' death was a suicide or murder. It was common knowledge at the time that the child Holman was expecting could be the subject of an ugly fight over the millions Reynolds would have inherited had he lived.

After negotiating with Holman, the Reynolds brothers used their share of his $7.5 million estate to establish the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation in his honor in 1936. Additional donations were subsequently made by family members to the foundation, which is now is one of the largest in the United States and donates millions of dollars annually with the goal of "improving the quality of life for all North Carolinians." The first donation served to combat venereal diseases. In 2016, the foundation distributed more than $553 million in grants to organizations across the state.

Recent Events: In late August, the Reynolda House Museum of American Art will open a small exhibit in the basement of the Reynolds mansion in Winston-Salem, where Smith Reynolds died, telling the story of Reynolds from his birth in the famous tobacco family to her life alongside Charles Lindbergh on her 17,000-mile solo flight from London to Hong Kong. The exhibition contains Reynolds' account of this historic journey. The museum also launched a new app, Reynolda Revealed, featuring family photos and oral histories including a stop on the tour focused on the death of Smith Reynolds.

If you know anything: Call the Winston-Salem Police Department Crime Stoppers Line at 336-727-2800. --MQ

Murder at the BE-LO supermarket

What happened: On the night of June 6, 1993, the manager of the BE-LO grocery store in Windsor locked a cashier and a four-person cleaning crew inside the store. A suspect hiding inside came out with a gun and led the six employees into a back room, where he duct-taped them, stacked them in pairs on top of each other, and began shooting at them.

The suspect shot four of the employees and stabbed another, stabbing him so hard that the knife dug into his body. He then fled the store, taking $3,000 and leaving three dead, two wounded and one uninjured.

The victims were Bud Cecil, a store manager, shot to death; Joyce Reason, cashier, shot to death; Johnnie Rankins, cleanup crew, shot to death; Tony Welch, cleanup crew, is shot but survives; Jasper Hardy, cleanup crew, stabbed but survives; and Thomas Hardy, cleanup crew, uninjured. After the suspect left, Welch crept out of the store to call police.

The investigation: Survivors of the brutal attack provided authorities with a description that resulted in a composite sketch of an African-American man with a lean body and a military-style haircut. Rumors have been circulating around town that the killer may have a military or police background, but there are no strong suspects.

Bertie County Sheriff, now retired J. Wallace Perry, told The Daily Reflector on the 25th anniversary of the murders that he felt too much material had been put into the sketch written at the time, particularly the description of the nose of the suspicious, who said it would look as if he had been injured.

Recent Developments: There have been no recent developments, but the case is still open and there is a $30,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer.

If you know anything: Call the Windsor Police Department at 252-794-3111 or NC SBI at 800-334-3000. - BC

Kidnapped at the bus stop

What happened: Five-year-old Brittany Locklear disappeared from her family's driveway in southern Hoke County on January 7, 1998. The abduction took place while Brittany was waiting for the school bus at the end of her driveway. . Brittany's mother waited with her but went inside briefly to use the bathroom. When she returned, Brittany was gone.

After a massive search by authorities and hundreds of volunteers, Brittany's naked body was found the next day in a drainage ditch on a farm road just three miles away. The boy had been raped and drowned.

The investigation: Brittany's parents were ruled out as suspects. A neighbor said she witnessed Brittany's abduction and described the suspect as a white male driving a large pickup truck.

The Hoke County Sheriff's Department worked with the State Bureau of Investigation and together they followed up on thousands of tips and interviewed all known child molesters within a 50 mile radius.

Recent Events: In 2003, investigators identified the only suspect to date, a former Fort Bragg Fire Department firefighter who had pictures of Brittany in his locker when he was arrested for a bank robbery that year. They took a DNA sample but it didn't match.

Hoke County Sheriff Hubert Peterkin told The Robesonian in 2009 that the department was "starting the case from scratch."

In case you know anything, there's a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for Brittany's murder. Contact SBI NC at 800-334-3000.

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