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The 1995 Shooting at the University of North Carolina
On Jan. 26, 1995, around 2 p.m., twenty-six-year-old University of North Carolina law student Wendell Williamson walked down Henderson Street near campus in Chapel Hill, N.C., carrying a semi-automatic rifle and wearing a camouflage jacket. He opened fire, killing 42-year-old restaurant worker Ralph Walker near his apartment. He continued walking, shooting at bystanders. Twenty-year-old UNC student and lacrosse player Kevin…
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Book Review: The Merchant of Venus
Today I’m participating in a fun blog tour for WOW! Women on Writing by sharing my review of the book The Merchant of Venus: The Life of Walter Thornton by Nancy Thornton Navarro and Adriana Thornton-Cornejo with Philip Mershon. Imagine losing a parent and discovering he had a secret life you’d never known about. You and your siblings embark on…
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Book Review: Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand
I discovered author Elin Hilderbrand on a beach trip with the book Barefoot, so it was fitting that I completed her final Nantucket-based novel, Swan Song, on the beach as well. I’ve never been to Nantucket, as I mostly visit beaches in the Carolinas and Florida, but you can bet it’s on my bucket list of places to visit, thanks…
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From Patriarch to the Small Screen: The North Carolina Murder of Leith Von Stein
The 1988 murder of Leith Von Stein that was perpetrated by a young man named Chris Pritchard, who was then a student at North Carolina State University. I found the following background information on the family in an article that ran in the Winston-Salem Journal on January 29, 1990. Chris Pritchard grew up in North Carolina, the son of a…
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What Happened to Jeremy Grice from Aiken, South Carolina?
On November 22, 1984, a four-year-old little boy vanished in the rain from his parents’ home. Jeremy Grice lived with his mother and step-father, Donna and Nick Arrington, and his 10-month-old sister Christy. His step-father put Jeremy to bed the night before while his mom worked second shift at a local manufacturing plant that made thermostats. She arrived home from…
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Library Apps, Creepy Notebooks, and Epiphanies about Writing
In addition to sharing my work here, I’ve also been writing for WOW! Women on Writing for many years. I blog for them about once a month, and thought I’d share some of my recent blog posts, where I share the app I can’t live without, my true crime journal, and how my writing style has evolved over the years.…
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Book Review: Daughter of Mine by Megan Miranda
If you’re looking for a suspense/thriller with a foreboding setting, I recommend Megan Miranda’s new novel, Daughter of Mine. Megan Miranda is the New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls; The Perfect Stranger; The Last House Guest, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick; The Girl from Widow Hills; Such a Quiet Place; The Last to Vanish; and The Only Survivors. She has also written several books…
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What Happened to Peggy Carr in Wilmington, N.C.?
Peggy Carr grew up in Toledo, Ohio and subsequently moved to Wilmington, N.C., to be with her fiancé and plan their wedding. On April 18, 1998, 32-year-old Carr left home to run a few errands. She left a note for her fiancé on the refrigerator that read, “Be back soon.” But she would not be back soon, and it wasn’t…
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The Deaths at Trails Carolina
On Nov. 10, 2014, a 17-year-old young man named Alec Lansing went missing after he left a group from Trails Carolina, an organization in Western North Carolina that offers wilderness therapy for young adults and children. At the time, Lansing, who was from Atlanta, Georgia, had been camping with a group off NC 107 in the forest near Heady Mountain…
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What Happened to the Dorchester Three in South Carolina?
On April 3, 1987, Linda McCord, age 33 and her friend Sarah Boyd, age 32 drove to a gospel concert in Waltersboro, South Carolina. They were traveling in a blue Lincoln owned by Linda’s husband and also took Sarah’s 2 ½-year-old daughter Kimberly along with them. Around midnight, Sarah’s husband returned home from work and was surprised that his wife…
