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True Crime Wednesday: What Happened to Jamie Fraley?
Jamie Fraley was a young 22-year-old from Gastonia who had lived most of her life with bipolar disorder and anxiety, but according to friends and family, she was on a medication that was working for her and excited about the future. She was taking classes at Gaston Community College and living in a nearby apartment. She was also engaged at…
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How Being a Writer Has Ruined TV for Me
I’m going to start this post off by saying that I know I probably shouldn’t watch as much TV as I do. Darn you, multiple streaming services that give me access to all my favorite procedural and true crime shows at the click of a button! But sometimes, at the end of a long day or week, you just want…
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True Crime Wednesday: Who Killed Lue Cree Overcash Westmoreland?
This article originally appeared in the October 2021 issue of Lake Norman CURRENTS. When 20-year-old Lue Cree Overcash Westmoreland retired for the evening at the home of her husband’s family on Jan. 19, 1937, no one expected the young bride of only two months would be murdered by the next morning. Lue Cree’s husband, Herman Westmoreland, lived in an apartment…
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Celebrate the Joy of Reading with Library Card Sign-Up Month
If you enjoy reading, there’s no doubt you probably have a library card. From the time both my kids could walk, we spent many hours each week at the library, especially in the summers. One summer my daughter even volunteered as a library intern and loved it. We are fortunate to belong to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library, which allows us access…
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True Crime Wednesday: The N.C. Murders of Viktor Gunnarsson and Catherine Miller
North Carolina isn’t exactly the place where one would expect to find a man suspected of being involved with the assassination of the Prime Minister of Sweden hiding out. Nor would they expect the man would be murdered as the result of a love triangle and not his troubles abroad. But that’s what happened to Viktor Gunnarsson in December 1993.…
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Always Learning
This letter appears in the August 2021 issue of Lake Norman CURRENTS. I love to learn about new things. Some of my favorite ways to consume new information is through podcasts, documentaries, and books. Sometime in this past year I realized I had gotten into a bit of a rut when it came to my personal education choices. I was…
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True Crime Wednesday: The Murder of Foy Dixon Cooper
Author David Aaron Moore shared the story of Foy Dixon Cooper in his book Charlotte: Murder, Mystery and Mayhem. At around 5 p.m. on Sunday, September 20, 1959, a group of young boys gathered in the Elmwood Cemetery in Charlotte to play and chase squirrels and chipmunks like they often did. Playing in a cemetery could involve quite a bit…
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Time to Get Away
This letter appears in the June 2021 issue of Lake Norman CURRENTS. For so many years, my weekends have been filled with “to-do’s.” I must go to the grocery store. I have to get to my kids’ sporting events. I absolutely must clean the house. A Target run is essential. All those things I couldn’t quite get to during the…
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The Night Swim by Megan Goldin
Synopsis: Ever since her true-crime podcast became an overnight sensation and set an innocent man free, Rachel Krall has become a household name—and the last hope for people seeking justice. But she’s used to being recognized for her voice, not her face. Which makes it all the more unsettling when she finds a note on her car windshield, addressed to…
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True Crime Wednesday: William Dathan Holbert
He was known to his friends as “Wild Bill Cortez” on the small islands of Bocas del Toro, a Caribbean enclave in Panama popular with tourists and expats. But what no one knew was that “Wild Bill” was actually a fugitive from North Carolina who had found the perfect paradise to fund a lifestyle he felt he deserved. In reality,…