I just wanted to take time to officially say goodbye to News & Observer “Down East” reporter Jerry Allegood. He retired recently, leaving a gaping hole at the N&O as the N&O has closed the Greenville bureau with Jerry’s departure. “The N&O is no longer the state newspaper that it once was,” an N&O staff writer [...]

We put out a story today that details a phone call made in the early morning hours of Jan. 11 at around the time Cesar Laurean left Onslow County headed for Mexico. You can read it here. I was hanging out in the copy desk area late last night because I was worried about the [...]

I am working on a follow-up story to the search warrants being released and found out this little piece of information. It does not fit into my story anywhere so I figured I would go ahead and tell y’all. The sheriff found a shoe in the backyard of 103 Meadow Trail while doing an interview with [...]

  WITN’s Chelsea Donovan asking Onslow County Sheriff’s Capt. Rick Sutherland questions during a press briefing Wednesday. Okay. The big stuff is out of the way. All the search warrants and affidavits in the Cesar Laurean case are out. The public has everything…until discovery. Then all this can start up again.  A link to the story [...]

More than 200 pages of court documents in the Cesar Laurean case have been released by an Onslow County judge. Read them here. Obviously, it will take time to go through all of the documents. I have several irons in the fire and will post later today.

- I wrote about something today spinning out of the Carolyn Futrell trial. The story will be online later and in the newspaper tomorrow. – Another cold case homicide story is Online. It came out Sunday. NCIS was very cooperative with me for the article. Read it here.  – I will be very busy tomorrow afternoon. Very busy. [...]

  When 9-month-old Nathaniel Banks begin to cry in his crib at 6 a.m. on Sept. 23, 2006, his mother’s fiancé, Daniel Whitehill, went to quiet him down.   But when Nathaniel would not stop crying, Whitehill slung the infant by the feet and slammed his head into the floor. When Nathaniel continued to cry, [...]

Jennifer Hlad, our interactive content editor / military reporter, is at a conference in San Antonio knocking back shots with a bunch of Freedom suits. She did some sort of Al Gore maneuver and re-invented the Internet or something. So someone has to write about the Osprey’s birthday. Let me tell you…I thought crime reporting [...]

Drake Garrett posted this under KKKrazy a few minutes ago. I have been mulling over what more to say about the Klan’s posts that Laurean being Mexican somehow had something to do with the crime he of which he is accused. After I read Drake’s recent comment, I figured it would be easier for me to [...]

I have somehow attracted the attention of some Klan members in the last few days who have inundated me with calls, e-mails, and a posts on the blog about how if the government had not allowed Cesar Laurean, a Mexican national, to become to an American citizen then Maria Lauterbach would still be alive. Hey, [...]

- Laurean’s new lawyer, Dick McNeil, has been all over the TV and radio. He is not shy. – An off duty Cumberland County Sheriff’s deputy riding a motorcycle in Onslow County on Saturday fired off a round after a vehicle ran him off the road, a law enforcement source has confirmed to me. - I am trying to [...]

Sorry I did not post anything today. I have been busy. And I didn’t get home early, which was not smart because I promised my wife I would and she is Cajun and I might have to call the law in a minute. My day started out all wrong. I missed an appointment at 9 [...]

Today was the best Sunday I have had in at least three years. Why? Because I did absolutely nothing. I laid on the couch for hours, watching several episodes of the A&E show “The First 48.” It is about the first 48 hours in different big city homicide investigations. (Cyndi Brown turned me onto it [...]

As I said before: About the MPO. I talked about it extensively with Mark Fuhrman the day Sheriff Brown announced that his people had found the MPO in Maria’s car. Fuhrman’s take on it was like this: With a pending Article 32 coming up, whether there was a MPO violation would be moot. He said [...]

The first class of the Marine Corps Civilian Law Enforcement Program Police Academy graduated Friday. I was there. You know the drill. Photos: The class. Eight of these guys will be joining the Provost Marshall’s Office on Camp Lejeune: Jacksonville Deputy Police Chief Paul Spring and Chief Mike Yaniero: Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown and [...]

- I missed a brawl at the courthouse today when Kevon Gayles was sentenced to 25 years for being a habitual felon. Gayles – one of the gentlemen arrested at Club Mickey’s on May 3 – apparently did not agree with his sentence and got rowdy. I have been told by a couple of cops [...]

From Congressman Turner’s office:  House Committee Amends Military Protective Order Process After Maria Lauterbach Case Ohio Congressman Seeks MPO Reforms and Calls for Further Review WASHINGTON, D.C. – The House Armed Services Committee passed two amendments last night sponsored by Ohio Congressman Michael Turner (OH-03) as a result of the case of Marine Lance Corporal [...]

Gov. Easley was in town today to tour the Belgrade area, which was hit by a tornado Sunday night. Photos. please: Landing in style…     …with an entourage. This injured 4-year-old kid still seemed shaken up by the tornado:                                                 Surrounded by state police, Gov. Easley enjoys Moore’s BBQ: Laura working on the same story as me:   [...]

- Most of the top brass in the local, state and federal law enforcement agencies around here were down in Wilmington today for a ceremony on board the USS Battleship Wilmington to announce a new file sharing system that allows them to look at each others police reports and such. (How come when I file share my wife makes me feel [...]

  – Sheriff’s Sgt. Bob Ides coming out of the Club Mickey’s injunction hearing. The owner of the club has agreed to close it down for good. – The Capital Defenders Office has taken Wally Paramore off the Cesar Laurean case and assigned military lawyer Dick McNeil. – The courthouse was so full today that [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

…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 [...]

- 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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]