In September 1985, the Blue Ridge region witnessed one of the most bizarre and quintessentially 80s crimes ever committed. On the morning of Thursday, September 12, Fred Meyers, an 85-year-old retired engineer, looked out his bathroom window while shaving and saw a dead body in his gravel driveway. The body was wearing a parachute, had […]
A Smuggler’s Airdrop Turns Deadly in the Appalachians Read More »
A riveting new book, Blood on the Blue Ridge: Historic Appalachian True Crime Stories 1808-2004, promises to captivate readers with a collection of true crime tales spanning nearly two centuries in the Appalachian Highlands. The book opens in 1808 with the story of The Nearly Fatal Footprint. A man is sentenced to hang based entirely
Blood on the Blue Ridge: Historic Appalachian True Crime Stories 1808-2004 Read More »
On Wednesday evening, January 14, 1942, David “Herman” Allen his wife, Ruth Lee Massengill Allen, Leon Allen, and Lettie Ballinger were having a night out in Benson, N.C., a small town about 35 miles south of Raleigh. After visiting a number of places, they drove to Bill Benson’s filling station, arriving there at about 1:00
A Jealous Man, a Triple Murder, a Night of Terror Read More »
1927 was remarkable for technological firsts. Charles Lindbergh made the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris. Philo T. Farnsworth transmitted the first electronic TV image. Warner Bros released The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length film with synchronized sound. On the crime front, Paul Jaworski and the Flathead Gang advanced the science
The Flathead Gang’s Daring Armored Car Heist in 1927 Read More »
Shortly before 6:00 a.m. on Saturday, August 25, 1917, Mr. C.C. Beaver, foreman for the street car barns and shops of the North Carolina Public Service Company in Salisbury, NC, walked into work and found a nightmare. The safe containing the money from the previous day’s fares was broken open and empty. On further investigation,
A Life for a Leg: Baxter Cain’s Deadly Bargain Read More »
In 1871, Phillip Arnold and John Slack entered the Bank of California in San Francisco. They were clad in worn clothing and covered in a generous layer of dirt and grime. One of them clutched a leather bag. They wanted to deposit it for safekeeping. The teller summoned a manager who told the pair that
Glittering Deception: The Great Diamond Hoax of 1872 Read More »
In part one, we met Garrett Hedden and his brothers, Bill, Joe, and Riley. All of them were moonshiners who followed in the footsteps of their father, John. Garrett had killed multiple men, including his brother, Bill, in 1898, and in 1900, he fought a party of seven revenue agents to a standstill in a
The Meanest Moonshiner in Tennessee Part 2 Read More »
In 1900, Garrett Hedden was the most feared man in mountainous Polk County, Tennessee, a rural district in the southeast corner of the state. He was a well-known moonshiner who the local newspapers labeled a desperado and credited with killing eight men. One killing, in particular, made citizens, marshals, and revenue men reluctant to cross
The Meanest Moonshiner in Tennessee Read More »
I had been anxiously awaiting the 5th Annual American Revolution Symposium: State of Rebellion: South Carolina’s Place in the American Revolution, and it exceeded my expectations in every way. Two of the presentations on the agenda immediately caught my attention: Bioarchaeology of the Camden Battlefield Burials: Dr. Madeline Atwell and Dr. Bill Stevens, Richland County
State of Rebellion: South Carolina’s Place in the American Revolution Read More »
Picture it like the movie Ocean’s Eleven went country: A down-to-earth, Southern-style heist. Instead of Danny Ocean and his crew of con men, explosive and electronics specialists, and an acrobat, we have David Ghantt, his married girlfriend, her petty criminal friend from high school, that guy’s cousin, one of his high school buddies, and a
The Gang that Couldn’t Think Straight Read More »
