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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 and daughter weren’t back home yet, but he assumed they had stayed over at Linda’s house and would be back the next morning. When they didn’t return, he filed a missing persons report with the police. Linda’s husband found the car abandoned in Dorchester County two days later. Upon further examination, he discovered…
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Book Review of Broken Faith: Inside the Word of Faith Fellowship, One of America’s Most Dangerous Cults
Several years ago, I watched an episode of the series “People Magazine Investigates: Cults” about a church in Spindale, North Carolina called “Word of Faith.” I was astonished at what I learned, and could see why the church is being considered called a cult by former members and other people who learn about it. The church was founded in 1979 by Sam and Jane Whaley. While Sam had formal training as a minister, Jane, who went to college to study education and eventually worked as a high school math teacher, did not. It didn’t take long before Jane declared herself a prophet and took over as the leader of the Word of Faith.…
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Year-End Review of My Writing, Podcasting, and Freelance Projects
Every year I try to take an inventory of my writing productivity and progress. It helps me stay motivated in reaching my writing goals and gives me ideas for future content. This past year has seen me writing daily, whether I’m working on copy, podcast scripts, book reviews, or revisions on my suspense/thriller novel. Yesterday I sat down and crunched some numbers to see what I accomplished in 2023, and I was pleasantly surprised by the results. Here’s a look at what I worked on this past year: For my true crime podcast, Missing in the Carolinas: I made the decision this fall to go from a bi-weekly production schedule to a weekly…
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Review of “Blood on Their Hands: Murder, Corruption, and the Fall of the Murdaugh Dynasty”
“Blood on Their Hands” is a memoir that journalist and podcaster Mandy Matney wrote after four years of reporting on Alex Murdaugh, his family, and their numerous related crimes. It details how she first became aware of the Murdaughs after Mallory Beach went missing as a result of the boat crash on Archers Creek, the mysterious death of Stephen Smith that many people felt was connected to the Murdaughs, the death of the Murdaughs’ housekeeper, and finally, the deaths of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh. With dogged reporting, Mandy Matney and a few other diligent South Carolina reporters would realize how everything led to the fact that Alex Murdaugh had been abusing narcotics and…
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Book Review: Secrets Laid to Rest by Catherine C. Hall
Book Summary Fall is in the air, the scent of autumn leaves and apple pies, and now a brand new business is opening its doors in small-town Sutter, Georgia. But not just any business. It’s the Golden Girls meet the Ghostbusters when four women find themselves in an unlikely career: Southeastern Paranormal Investigations. Ree Lane, a stylish widow, is more cynic than true believer, while her childhood chum Elle Harper has a knack for getting sensitive info with the help of her homemade pies. The preacher’s wife, Betsy Jones, can’t be seen with SPI unless she’s in her disguise as Nora, a psychic-in-training with a gift for Tarot. And the recently-returned-home Gillian Buchanan…
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Book Review: As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back by Alle C. Hall
Nominated for The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Book Award, Alle C. Hall’s debut literary novel, As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back is a-girl-and-her-backpack story with a #MeToo influence: Carlie is not merely traveling. A child sexual abuse survivor, as a teen she steals ten thousand dollars from her parents and runs away to Asia. There, the Lonely Planet path of hookups, heat, alcohol, and drugs takes on a terrifying reality. Landing in Tokyo in the late 1980s, Carlie falls in with an international crew of tai chi-practicing backpackers. With their help, Carlie has the chance at a journey she didn’t plan for: one to find the self-respect ripped from her…
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Find Your Voice This Fall
The month of October is always fun, as we break out our fall layers, toast s’mores, carve pumpkins, and figure out if we’re going to partake in the Halloween fun or simply hand out the candy. While you’re contemplating the perfect costume, why not consider trying out a new voice with your writing?I’ve always been a huge fan of the TV show Unsolved Mysteries. From the opening notes of the foreboding theme song to the unmistakable sound of host Robert Stack’s voice saying, “Perhaps, YOU can help solve a mystery . . .” I swear chills went up my spine at the beginning of each episode. I thought about his voice when creating the…
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The Unsolved Murder of Virginia Olson in North Carolina
The University of North Carolina at Asheville will always have a special place in my heart, because it was at that small college that I came into my own as a journalist. The small class sizes afforded me the ability to work closely with other students and talented professors who wanted me to succeed. For three years I worked on the campus newspaper, The Blue Banner, honing my reporting skills, interviewing students and administrators, working late nights at the office with only my jumbled notes and a miniature coffeepot to keep me company. I eventually became the features editor and then the news editor, assigning stories to reporters and perfecting my copy editing…
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Did Jeffrey MacDonald Murder His Family?
One of the most intriguing cases from North Carolina involves a man named Jeffrey MacDonald. MacDonald had attended Princeton University on a scholarship and then Northwestern University for medical school. He married his high school sweetheart, a woman named Collette Stevenson, before becoming a surgeon in the 6th Special Forces Group in the United States Army stationed at Fort Bragg in 1969. On the night of February 17, 1970, MacDonald, who was 26 at the time, awakened to a real-life nightmare. As he later told the military police, around 2 or 3 a.m., he woke up from where he was sleeping on the living room couch to the sound of screams. There, he…
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Season 2 of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” Vs. the Book
This post contains spoilers for both the second season of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” and the books the show is based on. Having recently binged both seasons of the Amazon Prime series “The Summer I Turned Pretty” and the books that inspired it, I wanted to share my thoughts on how the second season was different from book, “It’s Not Summer Without You.” While the first season of the show ended with Conrad declaring his feelings for Belly and kissing her on the beach, the second season begins with Belly admitting Susannah has died and she and Conrad are no longer together. While “The Summer I Turned Pretty” is only told from…
