An excellent column by Mike McHugh appeared in today’s edition of The Daily News. Read it in its entirety here. Excerpt: The person responsible for young Kayla’s death, Carolyn Futrell, was charged with her murder and tried in a court of law. She was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to two years in [...]

A new cold case article is Online now. Read it here. Walter Robert Wallace: Tuesday, I talked to JPD Capt. Gary Dixon about which case I was going to write about. We settled on Walter Wallace, a man found strangled in a Jacksonville motel room in 1992. Wednesday, I got a copy of Wallace’s death [...]

My wife and I always end up sharing our bed with someone. It’s OK, my parents did too. Get your mind out of the gutter. I am the youngest of eight children. My father had to put up with each of his kids climbing into his bed during a thunder storm or when they were scared for whatever [...]

Denver police arrested an ABC News reporter while he was taking photos from a public street of Democratic Senators and high dollar contributors. Photo from ABC News. Read the entire article about it here. The best line: “A cigar-smoking Denver police sergeant, accompanied by a team of five other officers, first put his hands on (the producer’s neck) then twisted the [...]

The Associated Press is reporting that former N.C. Rep. Thomas Wright (who represented Pender and New Hanover counties) was found guilty of felony obstruction of justice today. The Wilmington Democrat was accused of preventing election officials from carrying out their duties as they investigated his failure to report $150,000 in campaign contributions over a seven-year period, [...]

Star News reporter Gareth McGrath has an article Online about a Wilmington fifth-grade girl telling authorities that a man in a ski mask tried to abduct her today, the first day of school. According to the article, “the girl, who is 11, told school officials she was taking a shortcut home when she noticed a [...]

The body of Kayla Allen was removed from the Futrell family cemetery today. This comes at the end of a long five-year “nightmare,” Kayla’s mother said today at in the graveyard. This story has been going on for years and I think it has caused pain to everyone involved. To see the video of Kayla [...]

I got a call today from a newspaper reader in another part of the state who read an obituary in his local newspaper that said a 22-year-old man originally from his town died in Jacksonville. He said curiosity took hold and he searched for the dead man’s name Online and couldn’t find it. He called [...]

A report is Online at jdnews.com about Onslow County Superior Court Judge Charles Henry revoking the probation of a man previously convicted of sex offenses and sending him to prison for nearly two years. Read it here. The defense attorney said his client’s probation shouldn’t been pulled because the intern accused of document theft in [...]

I knew there was a reason I liked the guys at BlueLine Radio. Apparently, they have been mulling over the same information and have come up with some really good questions about the Aug. 16 attacks in Wilmington. They did a lot of homework on it. You should jump over there and read what they got. [...]

I thought y’all would be interested in this letter to the editor that appeared in today’s newspaper. I continue to steer clear of commenting on this particular case, but as always, I want to get information (and in this case opinion) to the people. And I will say just one thing: being compared to The [...]

This has been the most jammed up story I have seen in my short, but active time as a crime reporter. It started out simple enough. On July 24, a man brutally raped and stabbed a woman in a church courtyard in downtown Wilmington. I read about it in the Star News and saw it on WECT. I [...]

I’m normally more of a Springsteen fan, but the Atlanta-based band Rehab has a hilarious new music video from their latest CD “Graffiti the World,” which given its subject matter could have been written about Onslow County. You can watch it here. You have to get through the Navy commercial first. You gotta love the [...]

Good grief. We just got a list in the mail for our kids’ school supplies and it is outrageous. $47 for just one of my kid’s school fees? School fees? I thought that’s why we pay taxes. And on top of that, the list had a bunch of extra stuff like facial tissue. They collect [...]

“It’s unacceptable and inappropriate for anyone to pretend to be a reporter,” Newsweek attorney Steve Fuzesi told the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, “but even more inappropriate for a law enforcement person to use that as a tool — if the allegations here are true.” Fuzesi said Newsweek is looking into the reports. [...]

The News&Observer has a hilarious column about the Durham police chief not returning calls. Read it here. It says,”The chief famously scolded one of our reporters for calling him at home at 8 p.m. after police had shot and killed a fleeing home-invader downtown.” I am glad that when I called JPD Chief Mike Yaniero [...]

Daily News content editor Jennifer Hlad’s article about Robert Sharpe’s first appearance in court Monday is Online. Read it here.

Daily News content editor spoke with Cesar Laurean’s attorney the other day. Not all of the stuff he said fit into the article she wrote. She passed the information to me. I pass it to y’all: Dick McNeil said he has had two communications with Laurean. “He seems to be doing OK,” McNeil said about [...]

The Daily News article is Online now. Photo from wwaytv3.com. This is the woman – who voluntarily identified herself to the media – that says she was sexually assaulted and carjacked in Wilmington Saturday morning. After press time, I learned that the WPD are now saying the DoD uniform was in the car when it [...]

This is not the Jersey I remember from my heady days stationed at the Philly Naval Yards. But Mike McHugh – stylish in his Popeye Doyle hat, cob of corn and blue tee-shirt – swears he was just a short distance from the White Horse Pike when this photo was snapped Saturday.

A stolen vehicle linked to an alleged sexual assault and carjacking in Wilmington was recovered over the weekend in Onslow County, said Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown. According to a woman that says she was attacked Saturday the suspect looks like the man in a police sketch that Wilmington police say raped and stabbed a [...]

Couple of y’all have asked about what was said in the press conferences. The D.A. and Sheriff’s press conference is Online here. Daily News publisher Elliott Potter’s press conference is here. I like what he says about at the end of his statement about the newspaper wanting to report the story and not be a [...]

Jennifer Hlad’s article about the alleged theft of documents in the Laurean case is Online. Read it here. My favorite paragraph: The Sheriff’s Department later asked Kay to reveal information about his sources, and he refused, citing North Carolina’s “shield law,” which gives news reporters the right to refuse to testify about news sources, Potter [...]

Paparazzi caught up to Mike McHuch in New York City today. One photographer I talked to said that McHugh was the first celebrity he ever snapped with his Nikon that actually stopped and posed.

I have been asked by several people whether Mike McHugh’s “vacation” is a coincidence, is he on assignment or on the run. All I can say at this point is that McHugh is at an undisclosed location in Allentown, Penn. A photographer snagged this picture of where McHugh was suspected to be last night. I am trying to [...]

The newspaper has an article Online about the alleged theft of documents in the Cesar Laurean case from the Onslow County District Attorney’s Office. The report contains information about an undercover deputy approaching me, pretending to be with Newsweek and asking whether I could connect him with a source with information about Laurean. You can [...]

I joke around about marijuana on the blog a lot. But I don’t smoke marijuana – I have five kids, I don’t do anything fun. But I do believe weed should be decriminalized. That’s not to say we should be a nation of pot-smoking fools, I’m just saying getting busted with a small amount of [...]

Some of the weed from Monday’s bust. I did not take any.

Just to show there are no special favors doled out by the JPD, they handed me a speeding ticket today. I was doing 36 in a 20, the officer said. I’m not sure what I was doing. I got pulled over right past city hall. It is so hard to do 20 mph in that [...]

The management of a Fayetteville apartment complex will not allow the family of a slain Army nurse to recover her belongings because the apartment is in her husband’s name. Her husband – the man charged with killing her - has given his written permission, but the management says that’s not enough. WRAL has the whole story. And thanks to regular OTC reader Jim for [...]

Is this Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin or the new James Bond villain?

So Mondays are usually crunch time for reporters. After being off all weekend and coming in with really bad hangovers, it is hard for most reporters to concentrate. Or in my case most Mondays, finding something to write about. I started off this morning with an idea to write about the prescription drug abuse problem with [...]

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against a man accused of fatally shooting UNC-Chapel Hill student body president Eve Carson. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office will seek the execution of Demario James Atwater, 22. The other defendant, Laurence Alvin Lovette,17, is too young to be put to death, according to state law. Jurors in Orange County haven’t sentenced anyone to [...]

The community and law enforcement officials gathered at a Wilmington funeral home Sunday night to honor one of their own. Tarica Pulliam was gunned down in front of her apartment Wednesday morning. Her killer fled to Onslow County and shot himself the next day. Star News photo by Kate Lord. The Star News has an [...]

An article about the 1972 shooting death of a Camp Lejeune Marine on Western Boulevard appeared in The Daily News on Sunday. Read it here. The family of Sgt. William Miller is extremely interested in finding the person (or persons) responsible for the death of their loved one. Miller’s sister contacted me to say the [...]

Last summer, the Onslow County Sheriff’s Department busted up one of the largest theft rings in North Carolina history. Only 10 percent of that stolen property has been claimed. The rest is being stored at a secret location. Read about the latest in the case. Steve Moquin, a crime scene investigator with the Sheriff’s Department, [...]

Too good to pass up. This cartoon appeared in Saturday’s newspaper. For more go to Speed Bump.

I have an article in tomorrow’s edition of The Daily News about a Jacksonville man accused of raping a 4-year-old girl at least nine times. Read it here. A magistrate did not give the man a bond when he was arrested Wednesday, meaning he would have to stay in jail until trial, but today a [...]

The story about Bowen in Online now. Read the domestic violence protective order. Daily News photographer Don Bryan snapped these photos of the scene in Onslow County. New Hanover and Onslow deputies: Bowen’s car, left at the county line and towed to the scene, then back to New Hanover (I assume): The crowd gathered at [...]

This one wrapped up quick. I reported last night on a New Hanover County corrections officer that was gunned down yesterday. The suspect in the case fled to Onslow County and shot himself as law enforcement moved in on him. I will have more on it later. I have to write the article now. Bowen

The Maria Lauterbach Case: The scuttlebutt among local attorneys is that Cesar Laurean is trying to fight extradition back to the United States. I spoke to his appointed capital defender, Dick McNeil, today and he said is trying to find out for himself. I spoke again this week to a federal source and to reiterate [...]

I rode up to Raleigh on Friday with the sheriff to attend Clyde Cook’s swearing in ceremony as the new U.S. Marshal of Eastern North Carolina. Here Cook and Ed Brown talk about Cook’s father, the man who as then-Jacksonville police chief gave Brown his first law enforcement job in 1967. I wrote a previous [...]

The alleged triggerman in a 2007 homicide hasn’t been to trial yet, but the guy who drove him to and from the scene is on the first day of the rest of his life in prison. Read it here. And the pretrial story here. Prosecutors offered Jihad Melvin a short stint in prison to plead [...]

A federal source close to the Wimunc investigation confirmed to me today that NCIS just recently recovered a shovel they believe was used in burying Holley Wimunc’s body in Sneads Ferry last month. The source wouldn’t say where the shovel was found. But I believe it was aboard Camp Lejeune or close to it. I left a message [...]