Spent Sunday morning knocking on doors in the neighborhood where a 15-year-old girl was stabbed then shot to death during an alleged domestic dispute between her older sister and her Marine boyfriend. 15 is just too damn young to be caught up in all that drama. Read the news. Here are a few photos of [...]

Video of the suspects being booked into jail. ———————————————————————— Two active duty Navy corpsmen and one who was recently discharged were arrested Friday in the shooting deaths of a Carteret County father and son. Investigators detailed the case at a press conference Monday. Read the latest news from the press conference. Read the arrest news. [...]

Jacksonville High School’s band director has been charged with having sex with a student. Read the news. Mike McHugh snapped this cellphone photo of Chris Howard being arrested at JHS on Wednesday morning: Chris Howard was the school’s teacher of the year 2010-11. He is accused of having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old female [...]

A woman married to a Jacksonville man who married another woman appears happy to now be divorced, according to her Facebook page. Read the news. -

New reporter Amanda Wilcox, with Mike McHugh’s help, wrote a compelling article about a Marine involved in a murder/suicide late last week. Read the news. They have a good follow-up for today’s newspaper. Check it out. The Marine who killed his wife’s lover before killing himself cried out in many ways. One of them was [...]

Two Camp Lejeune Marines face accusations of rape in what one official called the worst rape and sodomy case they had ever seen. Read the news. After the story was published, 1st Lt. Kristen McCarthy, the deputy public affairs officer for the 2nd Marine Division, sent me an email clarifying that Kaiser and Krout have [...]

Much more will be reported on this case by the time it’s all over with. The story was picked up by The Associated Press and ran all over the world. Read our initial report. And the follow up. The NEW YORK DAILY NEWS report. The weapons and combat equipment were sold online to China, but [...]

Cops think they’ve solved an ear-biting cold case with the arrest of a Hubert man accused in another more recent chopping case. Read the news. The police press release. The victim’s ear:

Mike McHugh sent me pictures he took of the crime scene photos the D.A. presented during his press conference. I share them now – 111 Fieldcrest Drive: The window: The broken screen: ————————————————————————————————– David Darling was killed April 8. His death was determined to be justified by District Attorney Ernie Lee based on the state’s [...]

Mike McHugh and I spoke today with the Marine who killed two home intruders April 15. Read previous post. He was well-spoken and polite, but said he didn’t want to comment at length about the incident. He said he thought the media coverage of what happened was fair and the community has been supportive. He [...]

Maurice Skinner and Diego Everette were killed April 15. “These deaths, although tragic for the decedents’ families, are justified pursuant to the facts and circumstances of this investigation and the law of North Carolina.” – District Attorney Ernie Lee. Lee said the state’s newly updated Castle Doctrine applies in the case. Read the news. The article [...]

Elizabeth Tourish lets Daily News photographer Don Bryan know how she feels during her booking process Saturday after being arrested on charges of selling cocaine, delivering cocaine and maintaining a dwelling for a controlled substance: Read the news. A complete list of those arrested or still being sought will be available later in the week. [...]

A prominent Jacksonville lawyer was charged Thursday with driving while impaired and unsafe lane change. Deke Owens is a personal injury attorney at the Law Offices of John Drew Warlick, which also lists his areas of practice as family law, criminal law and civil litigation. He was charged by Jacksonville Police Department officer Scott Eichelberger, [...]

The court case of an Emerald Isle businessman accused of assaulting a woman last year was continued Friday to a later date in N.C. District Court in Carteret County. Booking photo Douglas Craig Starcke, 31, is charged with assault by strangulation, assault inflicting serious injury and communicating threats. Starcke co-owns South Swell Surf Shop and [...]

The Onslow County grand jury has indicted Timothy Akers on a open count of murder. Akers is accused of shooting a woman last year. Read the indictment. Read the news.

Investigation Discovery, one of my favorite cable networks, is featuring the Cesar Laurean case Saturday. I’ve seen the program and it is interesting. Read the news. The actor playing Sheriff Ed Brown doesn’t look much like the real deal, but other than that the re-enactments are good. Two photo stills from the show’s re-enactments- Laurean [...]

UPDATED I spoke today with Sheriff’s Sgt. Mark Perrigo, the SRO at White Oak High School. He said he was aware of the incident there and after an investigation determined the male student’s action not to be a sexual assault. He said the boy reached back and his arm hit the girl on the chest. [...]

Judging by the photos on his MySpace account, bank robbery suspect Rodney Milton had just one thing on his mind: Read the news of his arrest. Milton appears to be on parole in Pennsylvania. Not so easy to rob a bank in Jacksonville after all, huh?

Swansboro police arrested John L. Giltz, who turned 66 Thursday. He is charged with murder in the shooting death of 50-year-old Suzy Zemlick. Read the news. – Mike McHugh, Daily News columnist and master researcher, liked this otherwise sad case because Giltz and Zemlick are a whole lot easier to track down on the Web [...]

Police are tight lipped on Monday’s homicide in Swansboro. Read the news here. Mike McHugh and I bounced some information around and here’s what we came up with: The address where crime scene investigators were working Monday is rented by John and Helen Giltz. I dialed their number in the phone book with the South [...]

Michael Ward is suspected of having a gun in his rectum when he was booked into the Onslow County Jail. Read the news. Read the official press release from the Sheriff’s Office. It seems besides having a suspected ability for really packing it in, Ward has a proclivity for making up identities. He is charged [...]

I’m always amazed that in a modern-day shootout so many bullets are wasted. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want anyone getting shot, but when 20 bullets fly between five people and only one person gets hit, it makes you wonder what’s going on. Read the news. Mike McHugh and I went to the scene [...]

A former officer with the North Topsail Beach Police Department is accused of peeping into the bedroom of a nude teenage girl while she toweled off and put on her bra and panties. Read the news here. I spoke with the district attorney late Tuesday, after deadline, and he said the case would be handled [...]

While one alleged crook was robbing delivery drivers in Jacksonville another was beating up a store clerk with a framing hammer. Is it Black Friday all over again? Read about the guy accused of ordering pizza and Chinese and jacking the delivery drivers. McCarty: Read about the still-at-large suspect accused of robbing the Gum Branch [...]

The first-degree murder trial of Soyer Moll is underway. Read the news here. Jacksonville lawyer Wally Paramore stands next to his client Soyer Moll with legal assistant Terrie Trim in the background: Wally told me today that Terrie has worked for him for 18 years. I have been covering murder trials in Jacksonville for nearly [...]

A Jacksonville man – who hasn’t lived here in a while because he’s been on the lam – is accused of killing a Virginia man by running him off the interstate in a road rage incident. Read the news. Sessoms and his girlfriend (accussed of hiding pills in her bra): The real question authorities should [...]

One of the most recent murder suspects arrested in Onslow County has appearently gotten into some trouble in jail.  Juan Hernandez is accused of killing his wife and is locked up awaiting trial. Read about the homicide here. He popped up on the first court appearance calander last week with charges of malicious conduct by a prisoner and assault on [...]

There was another fire in the same mobile home park Wednesday. Read the news. Detectives think they have a good lead on the perp… ————————————————————————— Authorities are searching for clues as to who and why a car was torched in the Southwest area Sunday. Read the news. First thing I thought of was the Timothy Spicer case. [...]

I forgot yesterday to include this photo of the mobile home on Mattocks Road: And to answer Jan’s question, I don’t know who the body was supposed to be. I don’t think the authorities had an identity either just a tip a body would be there. ——————————————————————– A search for a possible dead body led [...]

- Robert Lewis has been convicted of manslaughter in his son’s death. Read the news. Photos from the trial are at the end of this post. I have covered every murder trial in Jacksonville in the last five years. I have seen some good lawyering on both sides, but I honestly think Ernie Wright put on [...]

In a courtroom brawl one lawyer likened to the 1974 Madison Square Garden rematch between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, prosecutors this week are attempting to prove Robert Lewis is responsible for his son’s death while his attorney is painting him as a sympathetic father and career police officer who has lost his livelihood. Read the news. Judges [...]

A Richlands man who has been in custody since the shooting death of his wife was charged with her murder early this morning. Read the news. I posted earlier that I beleived the homicide to have occured in the livingroom, based on better info I think the shooting happened in the kitchen of the house [...]

Either Mr. Akers changed his mind or there was a miscommunication in court, either way Dick McNeil has been appointed to represent him. A couple of days ago I said that I would chose McNeil if I were in a similar situation and now he has been appointed to this case . The Akers family should [...]

- A little girl, a friend of my own children, was struck and killed by a car on Sand Ridge Road early Monday morning while waiting for the school bus. Just like other recent situations, it sucks when I get a phone call and start running information down to find out the persons involved are not strangers, but live down [...]

A lot, I mean a lot, has happened in the last several days. Here is a run down of several loose ends and updates to stories and cases I have covered in the newspaper or on the blog: - A Sampson County man who killed his family will spend the rest of his life in prison now [...]

I remember when I was a child every Mother’s Day we wore a pink carnation corsage to church. Pink meant your mother was alive while white meant your mother had passed away. I don’t know whether the three children of murdered mother Irene Bennett are church goers, but if they are, they will have been wearing white [...]

- One of the longest criminal trials in Wake County history is coming to a close. In a case I mentioned on the blog from time to time since 2008, Cary resident Brad Cooper is accused of killing his wife he said went out for a jog. Read the updated news here. – I have it [...]

A report that begin about a former Marine accused of child abuse ballooned into a much bigger story as details emerged in the marriage of the defendant and his now-estranged wife. The resulting article is online. Ironic that this report – which was held for a few days due to spacing issues because of so many [...]

The family of a woman accused of identity theft says she is caught up in a case of mistaken identity. Police have made an arrest in Friday’s shopping spree in which three women used credit cards stolen from teacher’s purses to buy Ester baskets, gift cards and electronics. Sharonda White, the arrestee’s sister, says Candra Burgess is innocent. [...]

In the first appeal out of Onslow County to be heard in oral argument in years, lawyers made their points in the George Hayden case in Raleigh on Monday. Hayden was convicted last year of first-degree murder in the 1972 shooting death of Marine Sgt. Bill Miller. Read the entire 50-plus page defendant appeals brief. [...]

Jeff Vavla, a convicted murderer suspected in at least one other homicide, was arrested this weekend and charged with stealing dogfood. I don’t know much about the guy arrested with Vavla, Archie Dale Lester, but he is well known to law enforcement. Vavla escaped justice in the death of Karen Sue Lanham - a woman who was [...]

Remember the woman recently caught on video stealing a stack of newspapers? Here she is in action. After talking with the cops, she came into the newspaper Thursday and paid for the newspapers. Guess it was all a big misunderstanding and she just happened to accidentally pick up the stack of papers by mistake. I [...]

Wednesday proved to be a long, difficult day of testimony in the manslaughter trial of Robert Lewis. I wasn’t surprised to learn the 911 operator who took the call ended up leaving the job. This tragedy has affected everyone. When the 911 recording finished playing at 4 :30 p.m., the courtroom was completely silent with everyone from the jury to [...]

While down at the courthouse today rummaging through old search warrants looking for info on an upcoming murder trial, I found this: It seems that a young, strapping Camp Lejeune Marine lance corporal was enjoying a good time at O’Charley’s when a gunny and his foxy wife approached him and offered to buy him drinks. [...]

Several things happened all at once this afternoon. – A father charged after a pit bull mauled his son. A neighbor in that area said the pit bull had busted out of the fence Saturday and was chasing kids on their bikes. That’s why he was on the chain Sunday… – The BB guns at [...]

I’m baffled over this one. A Camp Lejeune Marine Colonel was charged over the weekend with stealing two printer cartridges and STP Gas Treatment from the Marine Boulevard Wal-Mart. Read military reporter Hope Hodge’s story. Col. Petit taking command of the 24th MEU back in September: Read that story here. I have a line on [...]

I have spoken to several people present during the New Year’s shooting at The Rock nightclub that hospitalized two young men. Much of what I have learned will be included in an upcoming Daily News article on area nightclubs. But some of what I’ve learned couldn’t wait until then. Information pertinent to the investigation has [...]

In what can be considered a grand slam for Jacksonville, The Rock has lost its liquor license and will soon be serving breakfast at Denny’s. The Rock:                                                 Denny’s:                 Read the story here. And Hope Hodge’s excellent article detailing the club’s history. Police reports I obtained and affidavits attached to the state ABC Commission’s Last Call [...]

The girlfriend of Joshua Mathis, a Marine arrested last week on charges of motor vehicle theft and breaking and entering, has been arrested. Gasp! I’m so surprised! … like anyone didn’t see this coming when the police said the vehicles were found in Arkansas, where she lives.

Sheriff Ed Brown called me a little before 5:30 p.m. yesterday to tell me that the medical examiner had finally listed an official cause of death for Anneka Lasseter, a 29-year-old mother who was murdered and dumped in a drainage ditch in May.   Read the story here.   And yes, it was on jdnews.com [...]