A Daily News employee had her vehicle broken into last night, the dash ripped out and all the electronics stolen. Mike went to pick her up and ran into the Onslow County Sheriff’s Department investigating the crime. He snapped a photo of them at work.
  
Bill Merideth - one of the crime scene investigators who dusted Maria Lauterbach’s car for […]

Since my first born was 2, I have purchased plain blueberry or cherry Pop-Tarts with no frosting.
I buy the other kinds too: Frosted Strawberry, Oreo, Vanilla Cream, and Chocolate.
My five kids have harangued me for years as to why I buy plain fruit-filled Pop-Tarts with no frosting when they don’t like them.
As long as I […]

The Shark Tank is getting full. Here is another opportunity for all you peace-loving folks to get along and hold hands and tell each other how special each of you truly are. Or not.
I have ventured into the Shark Tank from time to time and I have to admit that some of that stuff is […]

As I promised my wife, I have been unplugged for the last 48 hours. She was right, it didn’t kill me. But it sure as hell hurt a lot.
Amanda and Aniesa Holmes did a bang-up job covering for me Friday.
Amanda wrote more about the Mickey’s Club / Channel 12 story.
Aniesa covered civilian police training to […]

I filed a story about a friend of mine who was arrested today. That is not an easy thing to do.
Read it here.
Law enforcement says he did what they say he did. He tells me he didn’t.
Eugene at the Bill Clinton front porch rally Monday.
Eugene is a good guy. He was charged with a […]

…and y’all won’t like what they told me.
Dr. Charles Garrett, the local medical examiner who signed Maria Lauterbach’s death certificate, said he would defer to Dr. Clark.
Dr. Thomas Clark, smart enough to recognize a slippery slope, refused to answer any of my questions. He said:
“Sorry, but I am not going to make additional statements on […]

- I wrote about a mobile home fire yesterday. While monitoring the scanner during that situation I heard calls for three things that make Onslow County what it is:
1) A woman called 911 to say she found an extension cord plugged into her house and followed it to a neighbor’s house and apparently her neighbor’s power had been shut off and they were using […]

Good grief.

- I have been drafted into writing about the elections today. During a presidential primary and with so many local races going, it is an all-hands-on-deck situation at the newspaper. I am also stringing results for the Associated Press, so I will be pretty busy today.
I received these two photos in my e-mail this morning […]

I took a couple of good photos of Clinton at the rally.
I like Clinton. I have run the gamut in presidential elections. I voted for Bush in 1992. Clinton in 1996. Gore in 2000 (but I think they didn’t count my vote). I voted for the lesser of two evils in 2004. And this year, I honestly don’t […]

Former President Bill Clinton was in Jacksonville today on behalf of his wife’s campaign.
Here are photos from the event:
Bill Clinton and  N.C. State Sen. Julia Boseman:

Reporters (including Jennifer Hlad from The Daily News) interviewing the owner of the house Clinton stopped at, Kerry Martens:

The Secret Service keeping a watch as Clinton works the crowd. I was amazed […]

The Shuffle is back by popular demand (actually, I was really busy last week).
- I am working on a story that one source has said will be “a campaign issue for the rest of the county commissioner race.” More on that later in the week.
- The hearing for judges Thagard and Cameron is scheduled for […]

Um…due to a technical error, the original Mickey’s Raid post was accidentally erased. Sorry.
Let’s try again.
Mickey’s was raided early Saturday morning. Read about it here.
And the pictures:
Onlsow County Sheriff Ed Brown and Sgt. Bob Ides: 

Chelsea (from WITN), Laura from WNCT), and Heather (from WCTI):

Maj. Terwilliger stops a woman who is ready to leave:

Deputy Appleyard searches a vehicle:

Sgt. […]

Sunday’s edition of the newspaper ran my cold case homicide story about a woman whose skeleton was found in Jacksonville in 1995. Detectives have done just about everything in the world there is to do to figure out who this woman is and what happened to her.
Read that story here.
Here are some photos of the […]

Not only did I get paid the big bucks by the newspaper for covering the Air Show today, I brought the family along.
Smart, huh? Two birds, one stone.
I tried to bring the kids to the Mickey’s raid this morning, but the wife wouldn’t let me.
Here is the wife rocking her Beatles shirt and some of […]

The Jacksonville Police Department pulled over this B-25 after clocking it going 175 mph.
Actually, Capt. Tim Akers (in the middle) and the traffic division are helping out with the air show this weekend on board New River Air Station.
Here they are pushing a B-25. When they help out, they really help:

I am covering the story […]

I was clearing out some of my old photos and found these. In the first one, D.A. Dewey Hudson talks to local TV reporters. In the second one, a Wilmington reporter gets to the courthouse too late to make it into the first picture.
Chelsea (from WITN), Parul (from WNCT) and Heather (from WCTI) talk to […]

Jennifer Hlad (our interactive content editor) put together a list of links to all the video the newspaper Web site has associated with the Cesar Laurean case.
Here they are. By watching them in their entirety, you might be able to pick up something that has been missed by everyone.
Press conference Jan. 10
Press conference Jan. […]

I have read a few posts here and there about the Onslow County Sheriff and the Onslow County taxpayer. The Daily News has covered this type of story before.
I have an observation or two. The following is nothing more than anecdotal evidence; I share it since someone else brought it up.

A couple of weeks ago […]

Two beers into my night, I had this thought:
What would happen if I linked to this page?

Mike turned over some more info about the bus station today.
1) The customer in front of Maira at the Jacksonville Bus Station on Dec. 14 is demographically dissimilar to anyone central to the case. The issue is a rabbit trail.
2) We are confident in saying the surveillance camera at the bus station was not working […]

Dateline NBC conducted exclusive interviews with Onlsow County authorities at Comfort Suites in New Bern today. The Cesar Laurean case was their topic of discussion. A producer with the show said that Dateline just arrived in the area this week and that they are not sure whether they will run a segment on Laurean. However, sources in […]

Some people like to see their name in the newspaper. Politicians usually do, unless they’ve been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Cops like to see their names every once in a while. But people accused of a crime…
People accused of a crime generally do not like to see their name in print. […]

 
Daily News reporter Molly DeWitt took a ride downtown with Swansboro police on Friday for a story in the newspaper today. She had so much fun, she wanted to tell everyone about it. Ride alongs are fun, I suggest you ask your local police to see if you can spend a couple hours with them, but leave your weed […]

OK, Drake and Lindsey. This is for you. While I continue to put together a facts sheet, I have agreed to post a theory thread. Please let us know what your theory is on the death of Maria Lauterbach. Be respectful, of course, but this is the place to tell everyone what you think happened […]

- Jennifer Hlad (the newspaper’s interactive content editor / military reporter) and I are having a drink tonight with the producers of a major network news magazine show. I wonder what they want to talk to us about…
- Search warrants in the Laurean case still have not been released. Perhaps they ran out of Sharpies, […]

The Daily News ran another cold case article Sunday. I am very proud of the story.
It is weird how each one of these cold case articles have come together differently.
For this one, a story about a triple-homicide nearly 30 years ago, I was limited in what information I could find. I couldn’t track down any […]

I had a chance to sit down at my home computer this morning and read through seven or eight pages of comments on the students arrested at rally story.
A lot of people were knocking the newspaper for the usual, “sloppy reporting,” “shouldn’t have printed it,” etc.
Had we not printed the story and word got […]

Mike and I had to take a long drive to come up with this. Mike swears it was 499 miles, but I think it was actually a few laps shy of that.
We have been able to substantiate with documentation what the Jacksonville Bus Station clerk told Mike on Friday.
According to the printouts we posted, Maria received a […]

OK. So far so good. I have received some complaints from people and some people are not happy with the whole Boxing Ring concept. BUT, it has kept arguments contained and that was my goal.
I know I said I was going to name the next debate quarantine thread the Wrestling Match, but given the nature […]

I know it seems like the warrants are taking forever, but I got the feeling authorities are doing a little something different with them this time. You’ll see what I mean when they finally come out…
In the meanwhile, I wanted to talk a little bit about public documents. I got a crash course in the […]

While I was writing about a local doctor with malpractice issues and an arrest at the Clinton rally, Mike was really busy too.
Here is his report:

Our hunch became fact as to where Maria Lauderbach was recorded by an ATM camera making a transaction on Dec. 14, 2007, at 4:19 p.m. Using the roof lines of […]

I was at the Clinton rally in Jacksonville today.
Two local high school students got arrested.
The newspaper is working on getting some pictures from crowd members.
Meanwhile, here is some pictures I took:
 The Secret Service:

The reporters:
Melissa and Jennifer (from The Daily News) and Chelsea (from WITN)

The brass:
Deputy Chief Paul Spring, Capt. Tim Malfitano and Deputy Chief David Shipp (of […]

Mike checking to see what position the sun would have been in December from the viewpoint of the ATM surveillance camera that captured Maria Lauterbach’s image Dec. 14 at 4:20 p.m.  
Mike says:
The location of the ATM filming Maria Lauterbach Dec. 14, 2007, at 4:19 p.m. is a Marine Federal Credit Union / Cash Points kiosk in the parking lot of the […]

Capt. Sutherland had originally put this at the end of his answers to Q&A part 3, but I felt it would get buried beneath all of his “I can’t answer that” answers, so I cut and pasted it here. He refers law-enforcement officers as “LEOs” and calls the Sheriff’s Department the “SO” a lot, which […]

Mike and I killed some time today by riding around Jacksonville taking photos of buildings. (I din’t win a 2007 NCPA photography award for nothing.)
Welcome sign:

Idlebrook:

Law office:

Law office:

Bonus: JPD in action on Western Boulevard

Bus out of town:

Hunters Creek:

Mike is holding strong to the theory that Laurean must have considered going to Hooters on Western Boulevard […]

- Rep. Turner has asked the DoD to look into the handling of the Maria Lauterbach investigation by the Marine Corps.
- The two judges, a magistrate and a bus load of lawyers story is online. One poster at jdnews.com has already called it, “Onslow County at its best!”
- Cliff Hill, who was a crime reporter at The Daily […]

So far, I have written about four cold case homicides for The Daily News.
The newspaper is working on an interactive map for jdnews.com that will provide information on all the unsolved homicides in Onslow County, including Jacksonville and Camp Lejeune.
The first cold case I wrote about moved to the front burner when the Surf City […]

Here is a copy of the story the newspaper will run tomorrow:
 
——–
 

 
Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, will ask the Department of Defense to investigate the handling of the rape and homicide cases of Maria Lauterbach, a Camp Lejeune Marine killed in December.
Lauterbach’s mother, Mary Lauterbach, will join Turner in the Armed Services Meeting Room in the […]

- Jacksonville Police in Deputy Chief Paul Spring’s office talking to the Secret Service about Sen. Hillary Clinton’s planned visit to Jacksonville on Thursday.
 
- I have put the finishing touches on the story about a practical joke that may end up with serious repercussions for two judges.
 
- I have talked with several people about […]

I don’t know how much longer Sutherland is going to answer questions. He mentioned being inundated with them the other day. So make this round really count with the absolute best questions you can come up with, it might be the last go round.
Here’s mine: Sir, do you know whether it was an issue of […]

A few months ago, a professor in Texas had his students go through a mock grand jury for Cesar Laurean as a way for his students to learn about the process. You can read about that here.
The good professor just sent me word that his students conducted a mock extradition also. He e-mailed me:
 
 Hi, Lindell:
 At […]

I have received a few calls and e-mails about the whole robbery with a dangerous weapon indictment the grand jury handed down in the Laurean case back in January.
The Associated Press muddied the waters with an erroneous report and several media outlets - including The Daily News - followed suit. We were the only ones […]

- The shuffle for me today consisted mainly of sleeping late and taking the wife and two youngest kids to Wal-Mart.- I have learned some stuff about the 1981 Camp Lejeune triple-homicide. Be writing about that for Sunday. - I am wrapping up the story about two judges, a magistrate and a bunch of lawyers. (Doesn’t that […]

A lot of the InSessions crowd like to duke it out. I am trying to keep this blog above the fray, but some things are inevitable. Please fight it out here so the normal threads can go unmolested. So get in your best shot and lowest blow and see who really is the smartest-assed cyber […]

A few more stops on the 5-cent tour:
Law office:

Law office:

The man can’t even cross the street without news hounds on his trail:

109 1/2 Western:

Mike finding out what happened to the missing piece of fence at 103 Meadow Trail while being careful not to trespass:

More to come…

Check out Jacksonville Deputy Police Chief David Shipp checking out Off the Cuff.
- I wrote a story a while back about a guy winning a crazy court of appeals case, well there is more coming on that and this time he is the one filing charges against the government.
- Judge Henry unsealed seven subpoenas related […]

A few more spots in Jacksonville.
Sheriff’s Department:

Onslow County Courthouse:

Sheriff’s Department sally port:

District Attorney’s Office:

Courthouse Cafe:

Magistrate’s Office:

Courthouse fountain:

Side Trip Bonus:
101 Meadow Trail:

More to come…

Some posters have brought up really good points about what federal and military law says about aiding and abetting a fugitive. So far we have heard the D.A. talk about North Carolina law, but I don’t know if we have heard from the Marines (since […]

PLEASE POST NEW QUESTIONS ABOUT THE LAUREAN CASE HERE. HOPEFULLY BY MAKING IT MORE MANAGEABLE WE CAN GET SOME ANSWERS. THANKS.
On Saturday, Capt. Sutherland must have found a few moments between chasing his kids around and helping with the new baby, because he has answered round two of your questions. I have boiled the questions […]