A former Onslow County prosecutor and current magistrate in Duplin County was stabbed during a home invasion last night. Read news here. In the above 2002 archive photo, Catherine Rhodes, left, and Ramona Gonzalez, a witness legal assistant, discuss a case outside the Onslow County District Attorney’s Office on Front Street in Jacksonville. Everyone I spoke to that knew [...]

Lisa Littleton called 911 to report someone has poisoned her pond fish, according to the police band scanner. Littleton’s husband is in jail awaiting trial in the shooting death of a neighbor. The Gibson Branch Road feud continues and will not have a happy ending, I am predicting. Read about shooting here.

OK, so PETA is upset the Marine Corps uses pigs (and PETA say goats, but no one else has independently confirmed that) in field medical exercises. Trainers will damage an animal and the trainee has to try to fix it. This is real-time, bloody, stressful training that more than likely has saved American lives on the [...]

An Onslow County Sheriff’s deputy who was forced to kill a man two weeks ago has been cleared by the SBI and the D.A.’s Office. Read news here. Here are the photos the D.A.’s Office showed at the press conference – Traub’s trailer with the broken window: Trees where deputies had to take cover: Close [...]

No this isn’t a deleted scene from “Goodfellas.” This is Eddie Atalla, owner of three premium cigar shops in Jacksonville. A lot of the people I meet on the job are, to put it plainly, not nice people. That’s why Mr. Atalla was a pleasant surprise. I was out Sunday looking for some local tobacco smokers to talk [...]

Sunday’s Court Case Homicide is online. Read it. The article names two gangs operating in the area – the 252 Bloods and the 924 Folk Nation. When I first took over the crime beat, getting anyone to admit there were active gangs in Jacksonville was like pulling eye teeth. In late 2007, authorities were saying gangs [...]

I owe an apology to JPD Capt. Billy Houston. I was so incredibly tired Friday night when I submitted caption information on a wreck photo that Chuck Beckley took that I incorrectly listed Houston’s first name. I have been working with Capt. Houston for more than two years. I shouldn’t get his name wrong. But Friday, [...]

While hanging out at the courthouse today, reporters waiting to catch a couple of 1st Appearances got bored. What do we do? Take fake mugshots of each other! Here are the ugly results. LINDELL KAY – Drunkard: Chelsea Donovan – Black Widow (watch out Doug!): Philip Jones – Adult Film Star:

Two defendants in stories I am following had first appearances in Onslow County Court today. Dustin Cosper stood before the judge on his newest sex charges. Nothing changed from yesterday on him. Rodger Gill looking worn out after the long car ride and night in jail, asked for a court appointed attorney. Bill Gerrans has [...]

District Attorney Dewey Hudson will hold a press conference Monday at 1 p.m. in reference to the March 18 shooting incident involving the Onslow County Sheriff’s Department. Read previous story. Listen to 911 call.

Read news here. Gill’s first appearance is scheduled for Friday morning, which means it will be Friday afternoon. I am interested to see if the state allows him to keep Bill Gerrans as an attorney.

I’m an avid reader. It is a part of my life that is inseparable from the rest. I have always enjoyed reading. When I was a child, I made my mother read “Scuppers the Sailor Dog” to me over and over. I read “Lord of the Flies” like six times in junior high and my [...]

I am off today, so I am just posting the entire press release from the Sheriff’s Department: ONSLOW COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE 701 MILL AVENUE JACKSONVILLE, NC  28540 (910) 455-3113 Office (910) 455-0184 Fax ARRESTEE: Dustin Paul Cosper W/M DOB: 04-14-1970 (38 y/o) 2065 Hunters Ridge Drive Midway Park, NC 28544 CHARGES:Second Degree Forcible Rape, Incest [...]

Apparently some members of the Sheriff’s Department have nothing better to do than take pictures of my bald spot. Hey, didn’t Judge Crow say no unapproved photos in the courtroom?

I get e-mails and phone calls from time to time from people involved in a criminal case and curious about when a certain person is going to trial. They say they have looked up a name on the N.C. Court System Calendar and see that the person is scheduled to appear in court on such [...]

A Illinois man indicted in Onslow County for murder will soon be on his way back to stand trial. Read news here. Rodger Gill was at the scene on Western Boulvard in 1972 when Bill Miller was gunned down with an M-16, according to his former fiance. She confieded that information to law enforcement after holding it [...]

NBC Dateline’s Keith Morrison is hard to forget. His interview style is unique to say the least. I saw this on Saturday Night Live a week or so after the Bill Miller episode of Dateline aired. If you haven’t seen this and need a good laugh then the 30 second Old Navy commercial is worth [...]

A Belgrade man who coached football and taught at Jones Senior High was charged by the N.C. SBI with forcing two female students to perform oral sex.  Read news here. Investigators believe there might even be more alleged victims. What gets me is the former principal that didn’t turn this guy in two years ago. Basically [...]

The trigger man in a 2007 homicide decided 19 years in prison was better than life. Too bad the wheel man in that murder didn’t arrive at that destination because now he is doing life without parole. Read news here. Authorities thought there would be gang interferance in the trial, but all it had was two broken-hearted [...]

The wife of a man accused of getting a teenage girl drunk and taking pictures with his hands on her private parts has been arrested. Read story here.     

Another wild morning at the Onslow County Courthouse. About two seconds after a Richlands ice cream shop owner was scheduled to plead guilty to sexually assaulting underage employees, his lawyer put a nix to the deal. With a packed courtroom and news media lined up against the wall, Jacksonville attorney Paul Castle pulled his client, [...]

Authorities in Highland, Calif., are investigating the stabbing death of Camp Lejeune Marine Anthony Vargas, 20, who was on leave after a tour in Iraq, the Associated Press is reporting. Vargus. Courtesy of KABC. Investigators with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department are looking for Marcus Deshon Perry, 19, as a person of interest and [...]

Sgt. Brandon Eliason returned to his home Friday morning to find it had been burglarized. He informed authorities and while he is waiting for them, he sees the alleged crook in a neighbor’s backyard. Eliason helps arriving deputies chase the crook through the woods, but they lose him. Eliason stays on the scene assisting in [...]

A troubled young man who is accused of killing his mother with a butcher knife will not stand trial, a judge ruled Friday. Read news here. Last January as the world was focused on Jacksonville and authorities were looking for Cesar Laurean (who had already slipped into Mexico), a standoff across town created a buzz [...]

A four year old urban legend – that a gang shooting initiation will soon take place at a local Wal-Mart – has finally reached Jacksonville after cycling through Memphis, Greensboro and cities in Florida. Already people have contacted the newsroom with this nonsense and all I can say is “Gangs? We don’t even have gangs [...]

Onslow County Sheriff’s Deputies shot and killed a man this morning. According to neighbors and friends, the man was heading towards a self-destructive end. Read news here. Mike shot these photos at the scene:     

This post is to address comments on jdnews.com on the follow-up report about a Marine accused of secret peeping. This is my opinion and does not reflect the opinion of The Daily News or Freedom Communications. This should be common sense, but a lot of people have been asking me this lately and accusing me [...]

More information is available in the Marine secret peeping case. Links below: Read news here. Amanda Hickey has a report on what victims of sexual assaults should do. The Original news report is here. The Sheriff’s Department original press release.

A Camp Lejeune Marine staff sergeant has been charged with getting a young girl drunk and then having his way with her, which included taking pictures of his hands on her private areas. Read news here. Dustin Cosper from his MySpace page: There are reasons the newspaper writes these kind of stories the way it [...]

U.S. Congressman Mike Turner has asked for help from the new Secretary of State in extraditing Cesar Laurean.  Read news here. One thing that really bothers me about the Rep. Turner’s statement is that he says Laurean has been charged with rape. He has not and most likely never will be. It seems to be a blindspot [...]

Gotta love Onslow County. Last night, a guy allegedly forced a woman to buy his meal at Dunkin Donuts. Read news here. This is as about as crazy as the time some teenagers robbed a Domino’s Pizza guy and were busted eating cheesy bread and hot wings. I surfed around and found the funniest comment [...]

by William Gheen President, Americans for Legal Immigration PAC From the New York Times to the Raleigh News and Observer, there are For Sale signs hanging on the doors of prominent newspapers across America with only a few buyers at hand. While this must be very stressful for newspaper employees, editors and reporters alike, a [...]

Read news here. Investigators think they might know where she is, let’s hope so.

A Camp Lejeune Marine is in jail in Wilmington accused of threatening to blow up a plane. Um… Between the threats against the president and the Molotov cocktails, some military-type bigwig should really address this. Someone is going to get really hurt or dead when the threats shift gears into action. 

A Navy corpsman in trouble with the law last week for threatening his wife and having a military explosive device is in jail again for stalking. Read news story here. The Hubert VFD – wanting to distance themselves as much as possible from this story (and understandably so) – sent me a statement saying Gregory [...]

The Associated Press is reporting that the U.S. Attorney for North Carolina’s Western District is leaving her post for another position with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. U.S. Attorney Gretchen Shappert’s office announced Monday afternoon that she would be resigning the post effective midnight Saturday. Who cares? Right. Well I tell you all this [...]

In the latest example of the benefits of law enforcement sharing information, a car the Onslow County Sheriff’s Department has been looking for was recovered when they passed that info along to the news media to help spread the word. Read about it here and the earlier report here. I know some information has to [...]

Read this news report about a North Carolina prosecutor and a state senator pushing to see the law changed to make the death of an unborn child a seperate crime when the mother is killed or injured. Some say the law would go too far; some say the law falls short. You can also read [...]

By Justin Schoenberger I was going to write a straight news article about a new overtime policy for the Jones County Sheriff’s Office the county implemented last week, but ran out of space for it in this edition of the Jones Post. And that’s okay, since the technicalities of the deal aren’t of too much [...]

I was supposed to be attaching this disclaimer to the end of all my posts, but somewhere along the lines, I forgot and stopped doing it. Anyway, this disclaimer applies to past, present and future posts. Y’all have been behaving yourselves for the most part, but I have to put this out there just in [...]

This is just my personal opinion and should not be given any weight, but after reading all of the court documents, incident reports and arrest warrants, I think the Onslow County Sheriff’s Department stopped what was about to be a very serious situation. Read the news here. This situation was about to erupt and all [...]

The son of a man awaiting trial for murder has pleaded guilty in his own court case. Johnathan Littleton, whose father William Littleton is in jail on a charge of murder in the shooting death of a neighbor, pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy to commit robbery with a dangerous weapon against a pizza delivery man. [...]

Amazed at what’s front-page news To the editor: Your judgment and discretion continue to amaze me. The Feb. 27 front-page coverage of President Barack Obama’s first-ever visit to our community includes an article about some incarcerated half-wit whose ”Dear Diary” fantasies are a true credit to his upbringing. What’s that all about, balanced coverage? The article on page [...]

It is popular nowadays to blame society or one’s upbringing for the crimes one commits.  But I believe in personal responsibility and think each person is answerable for their behavior regardless of circumstances. Here is a good example: Niklaus Froehlich is on the lam for some ATM thefts. Two years ago he killed a stranger [...]

Good News: Erin Gould is in Ohio recuperating with her family, I have been told by a friend of the family. She was the victim of a brutal hammer attack last year that put her into a coma for a while. Her husband, Johnathan has been charged with attempted murder and is in jail awaiting trial. [...]

By Mike McHugh By now nearly everyone has either firsthand experience with unemployment or knows someone who has been laid off because of the shrinking economy. The decision to let go a worker in most cases is not personal but rather a “by the numbers” approach to reducing costs – in this case, labor costs [...]

Sheriff’s Sgt. John Getty has been nominated as an “America’s Most Wanted” All Star. Read the news here. To vote for Sgt. Getty go to AMW.com by clicking here. John and other juvenile detectives have the tough, unglamorous job of protecting our children from sex predators. On behalf of my five children, I thank him and all the others [...]

Sounds almost unbelievable, doesn’t it? That a school would dismiss a 10-year substitute teacher because he turned in a student for assaulting him. Well, that is what Charles Miracle says happened to him. Read Amanda Hickey’s report. One poster to that story has already brought up a former Onslow County School principal who had a reputation [...]