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 until seven months later that her remains would be found. After she disappeared, her mother Penny Carr Britton, along with other family members, traveled to North Carolina to begin searching for their daughter. In an article that ran in the Wilmington Star News, Britton credited CUE, or the Community United Effort Center for Missing Persons, for stepping in and assisting their family when they had no idea what to do next. They helped cover hotel expenses, brought them dinner, and did whatever else they could do to alleviate the stress.
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
What happened to Peggy Carr could best be described as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was senseless, and brutal. As she was leaving the Oleander Plaza shopping center on April 18, Carr was approached by 19-year-old Curtis Cobbs and 21-year-old Bem Holloway. They had pulled into the parking lot only moments earlier and were looking for a car to steal. Holloway approached the young woman and got into the passenger seat of her unlocked black Geo Tracker. First, he asked that she drive him somewhere. When she refused, he brandished a gun and told her to follow Hobbs, who was still behind the wheel of a white Mazda. He ordered her to drive over the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, down N.C. 87, finally coming to a stop in a Bladen County soybean field. There, Holloway stabbed Carr to death. They had initially wanted the Geo Tracker so they could use it in a robbery, but changed their minds. They abandoned it 16 miles away on the shores of Lake Waccamaw.
With Carr’s loved ones unaware that she was even missing at that point, the two men then embarked on a violent crime spree through the state of North Carolina. In the early morning hours of May 3, they robbed a convenience store in Lumberton, shooting clerk Julie Stehlik, who later died as a result of her injuries. On May 20, Holloway entered a residence in a subdivision in North Raleigh, attacking a 22-year-old young woman when she arrived back at the home. Incidentally, this was the neighborhood Holloway had grown up in along with his adoptive parents. Five hours later, the victim’s mother returned home. Holloway tied both women up with duct tape, but the younger woman tried to fight back, and he attempted to stab her in the stomach and throat. The knife was too dull, however, and when he left her unattended to find another weapon, she fled the home to find help. But something that Holloway said to the youngest victim while she was being held pointed to his involvement in Peggy Carr’s death. Law enforcement officials said his statements, where he bragged about committing the murder, along with things he’d said to cellmates after his arrest, led them to charge Holloway with Peggy Carr’s death, along with Curtis Cobbs. At that time, officials had still not been able to locate Carr.
According to an article that ran in the July 21, 1998 edition of The Raleigh News and Observer, Bem Holloway and Curtis Cobbs met in prison. They were both there for various offenses, including larceny and armed robbery. After spending a few years in prison, they were released and began their crime spree together.
Throughout the summer of 1998, hundreds of residents had heard of Carr’s case and volunteered to search rural Columbus County, but their searches hadn’t turned up any new leads.
The Final Search
On November 15, 1998, The Charlotte Observer reported that authorities had refocused their search for Carr after receiving new information about where she may be located. They declined to say where the received the lead, although many suspected it came from Holloway and/or Cobbs. They said they had a sketch of a location off N.C. 87. They weren’t sure if the area was in Columbus or Bladen County, but believed they were looking for a brick home on a paved road off one of the rural highways. They also mentioned the area was frequented by four wheelers and that a man had been driving a four-wheeler on the road shortly after Carr was murdered. A week later, tips from residents led authorities to human remains on the wooded edge of a Bladen County soybean field. Not long after, the state medical examiner determined the remains to be those of Peggy Carr.
Bem Holloway was sentenced to 76 to 95 years in prison for the rape and attempted murder of the young woman in Raleigh.
In June of 1999 Holloway was shot and killed by correctional officers as he and two other prisoners tried to escape from a work farm near the Virginia state line. At the time, he was still awaiting trial for Peggy’s murder. Curtis Cobbs served a little more than 10 years for the murder and was released in 2012.
Peggy Carr’s story was featured in Episode 58 of the true crime podcast, “Missing in the Carolinas.” Listen to the full episode, “Missing and Murdered in Wilmington, N.C., here.