I have compiled what I believe to the 10 most captivating local crime stories of the last year. These are the crime stories that got our readership talking. No. 5: “Operation Patriot” No, this is not a young Lex Luthor, it is a man with a diabolical plot of his very own. It was news [...]

I have compiled what I believe to the 10 most captivating local crime stories of the last year. These are the crime stories that got our readership talking. No. 6: “Suicide by Cop”� John Traub and Sam�Jarolim had several things in common: Battles with addiction,�loving families, and deaths at the hands of law enforcement. Both [...]

I have compiled what I believe to the 10 most captivating local crime stories of the last year. These are the crime stories that got our readership talking. No. 7: In the public eye (2009)� Local politics are always fun. Often the alleged antics of our elected official land them in court. Then I get [...]

I overheard in the newsroom that Reese Phipps was looking for me. I thought he read where I called his daddy a crazy man in my crime story countdown and was coming to kill me. I considered diving out the back door, but figured I should face the music. To my relief and everyone else’s [...]

I have compiled what I believe to the 10 most captivating local crime stories of the last year. These are the crime stories that got our readership talking. No. 8: “Hooligans” Jacksonville Police Chief Mike Yaniero was asking for funds from the city for nuisance abatement early in the year. Whispers that Hooligans would be [...]

Like I said a while back, the newspaper’s “Cold Case Homicide” series is drawing to a close. There are a few cases I still have to research, but for the most part, I have done all I can do as far as cold cases go in the newspaper. I will continue to examine cases on [...]

I have compiled what I believe to the 10 most captivating local crime stories of the last year. These are the crime stories that got our readership talking. No. 9: “Hanging Judge” When Duplin County crazy man Lacy Phipps started dressing mannequins up like local court officials and hanging them in effigy, no one in [...]

When Jan. 1, 2009, arrived, the newspaper was taking heat for running a front-page year later look back at the Maria Lauterbach homicide and Rodger Gill was about to be arrested in Illinois, accused in a shooting 37 years earlier. Some of the biggest stories of the previous year would continue to grab headlines, but [...]

- A murderer released on parole last year has landed a posh job at a hospital in western North Carolina. And promoted in short time too. His coworkers are not happy about it at all. – A former Pine Knoll Shores mayor has been charged with driving while impaired. A February court date has been set. [...]

I was inundated with calls and e-mails today from people asking how they could help the homeless people living behind the Piney Green Shopping Center. People had food and blankets and whatnot to give. While I am sure the folks living in the Colony can use whatever is given to them, like Ron Welch at [...]

On N.C. 24 - just down from Camp Lejeune on the expanding edge of Jacksonville – Onslow County residents busy themselves with buying presents and food for the holidays at the Piney Green Shopping Center: Most are oblivious to the activity behind the shopping center. As they shop for toys and neckties, members of the other side of society are [...]

Wow! It has been a full week since I posted. in almost two years, that’s the longest this blog has gone without an update. I had good reason, though. I had dental surgery last Wednesday and was out for three days. I haven’t really felt good until today. I have been cranking on a few [...]

- From the meeting room to the parking lot: A family member of an Onslow County commissioner ran over a family member of Richlands’ mayor. Read the news article here. The supposed victim in the alleged hit and run is used to being on the other side of the law. In 1993, Kilby Barbee killed a man with [...]

I spoke with a law enforcement source about the wallet. Here’s the deal from their end. Christina found a wallet in the Meadow Trail home – I believe the bedroom, but am not 100 percent on that – and asked Cesar about it. He supposedly told her the wallet belonged to a friend who must have left it and took [...]

Charged with running a meth lab out of a Richlands hotel Friday night, Racheal Ann Lewis Waid apparently has been edging closer to the heart of methamphetamine manufacturing in the area since her son died three years ago, according to a search of public records. In 2003, She married Kenneth Gordon Waid Jr., a Coast Guard reservist: [...]

Crime Stoppers is not offering a reward, but this man’s wife may be interested to know why he was purchasing a six pack when he was only supposed to pick up milk: No, this is not a frame from the fabled 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film, this is a forty-something free spirit exiting the Swansboro Piggly Wiggly on a Friday [...]

Sheriff Ed Brown said goodbye to Chelsea Donovan after six years of her reporting the news in Southeastern North Carolina. We went to Mai-Tai’s Restaraunt for lunch (I highly recommend the candy chicken). Mike McHugh took these photos with his cell phone. Chelsea, the sheriff, and Lt. Tommie Thomas: The Sheriff trying to explain how [...]

- Former Onslow County Commissioner Delma Collins is now a probation officer in a different county. He calls it his “third career.” – Murder suspect Tim Lacey claims homicide victim Kevin Foley owed him money. Oh, and Lacey charged $40 for a car detailing, and according to the people Mike McHugh and I talked to, he was really [...]

- A Camp Lejeune Marine has been charged with shooting and stabbing a Florida man outside his Daytona Beach home last month. Read the news here. – Even after about half a dozen attempts, JPD detectives can’t get murder suspect Tim Lacey’s girlfriend to talk; maybe they would have better luck with his ex-wife out in Oklahoma. – The [...]

I have said goodbye to a lot of people in this business in the last three years. Several reporters and editors and others at the newspaper have moved on. TV news people like Laura Vesco have also left, leaving the area a little less bright. But today the people of Southeastern North Carolina have lost [...]

NCIS and two local sheriff’s departments never stopped looking for Stan Bosley who disappeared almost five years ago. At times the case was extremely frustrating because they knew – or at least had a hunch – that his body was in the Hampstead woods just out of reach. After a centuries-old ceremony to talk with the Holy [...]

Albert Bedford led out of the courtroom after being sentenced to life in prison for violently beating and stabbing Vickie Lewis to death in the back of his van – where they used to make love – and then dumping her body – with a trash bag over her head – in a shallow grave on [...]

The murder trial of Albert Bedford continued Tuesday while outside CourtRoom #4 all hell was breaking loose. First Sheriff Ed Brown announced he planned to run for re-election. Then a construction worker fell of the new jail to his near-death and had to flown out of downtown in a helicopter. Later in the day, Cesar [...]

- Sometimes it pays to be part of the club. Ask a Pender County law enforcement official who got house arrest instead of pre-trial confinement for her son who was busted on numerous drug charges over the weekend. – JPD is zeroing in on the yahoo who phoned in threats all over town last month. [...]

The murder trial of Albert Bedford continued Monday with testimony from witnesses who said Bedford threatened Vickie Lewis prior to her disappearance and a homicide detective who talked about what he found at Bedford’s home looking for her. Bedford: “I’m fighting for my life right now,” he told a family member during a break in [...]

Former Camp Lejeune Marine Cody Brittingham threatened the president. No “allegedly” needed. He pleaded guilty in August. I dropped the ball and lost track of the case in the federal court system (i.e. I forgot). Sorry. But The New York Times picked up my slack and ran a really good article about early threats to [...]

Passages like this are why I read Edgar Award-winning novelist James Lee Burke religiously. Here is a short except from his 2003 New York Times bestseller “Last Car to Elysian Fields.” The set-up: In the first-person point-of-view novel Burke’s fictional New Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Sgt. Dave Robicheaux investigates the drunk driving death of a wealthy [...]

An article from The Examiner sent to me by the National Association of Chiefs of Police: The Department of Defense’s Task Force on Sexual Assault in the Military Services recently submitted its congressionally-mandated report to the secretary of defense.  The report — obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police’s Sex Crimes Committee – finds DoD [...]

That is a quote from Timothy Lacey’s MySpace page. Here’s two photos from his page: I don’t know if that is his cash or if he borrowed the image from somewhere else, but his love of money is apparent. Lacey and William Castro have been charged in the shooting death of Kevin Foley. Far from [...]

The trial of Albert Bedford skips Friday and then continues into next week. Read about the accused’s family finding a shallow grave in their backyard. Here are a few photos I took Thursday. Click on the thumbnail to see a larger picture. ADA Matt Silva questions Sheriff’s Sgt. Tom Robinson: Defense lawyer William Morgan and Senior ADA [...]

- The Albert Bedford trial continues today. During pre-trial motions, they mentioned Bedford’s year he spent in an Illinois prison in the early 1980s. I wonder if prosecutors are going to work in how he allegedly threatened Vickie Lewis with a shotgun and told her he would kill her and himself before going back to [...]

After a day of clearing the docket of probation violators and a day of jury selection, the murder trial of Albert Bedford will finally be underway Wednesday morning. That’s the reason Monday’s newspaper stated “jury selection is set to begin today.” I have learned scheduling at the courthouse changes like the weather. Pictures from the [...]

This was supposed to be some long, college-level thesis on how news articles come together, but I am tired and have a long day tomorrow, so here are the bare bones: News articles often have only one name in the byline, but – believe you me – it takes a lot more people than that [...]

You people are trying to get me into trouble. It seems like every single time I get in the car someone sends me a text message – or 10. It is now illegal in North Carolina to read texts, e-mail or the Web while driving. And prosecutors are taking it seriously. Read news here. And [...]