Lonely country roads in rural Rocky Mount, North Carolina lead to victims of a possible serial killer. CNN's David Mattingly reports. Since 2005 the remains of 5 black women prostitutes have been found murdered on the back roads of this rural area in NC. The state investigators think that the killer is someone who lives in the same area of the women. More than likely is the same race as the women that have been found murdered so far. There are 3 more women who are not prostitutes that are currently missing from the Rocky Mount area.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Serial Killer on the loose in NC 08-13-09
"Where Has The Mayor Been In All of This?"
Organizers tie hope for solving case to media
By Mike Hixenbaugh Rocky Mount Telegram
A group of community organizers hopes to keep the attention of national media focused on Rocky Mount and a string of local murders that some believe are the work of a serial killer.
At least five Rocky Mount women, all black, have been abducted, killed and abandoned in the woods since 2005, and three other women are missing. Investigators believe the homicides, as well as the murder of a sixth woman yet to be identified, might be linked.
Stephanie Jones, who helped organize the group Murdered or Missing Sisters in the wake of the homicides, said Saturday she believes recent nationwide media coverage of the murders could lead to a break in the case.
Following a brief segment on CNN on Wednesday, the Rocky Mount story appeared on every major U.S. news Web site this week.
“But we have to keep the pressure on,” Jones said. “I know there has been a lot of coverage this week, but it still hasn’t received as much attention as it deserves.”
Rocky Mount Councilman Andre Knight agrees. Knight, also president of the local NAACP, said he fears if nothing new happens with the case during the next few days, the national media will move on. Already this week, the case has been overshadowed by national reports of other missing persons.
Producers with both CNN Headline News’ Nancy Grace and Fox News Live this week had planned in-depth segments on the Rocky Mount story — first reported more than two months ago — before canceling coverage hours before airtime. In both instances, producers replaced the story with news of a Georgia woman who was abducted Tuesday. The missing woman is white.
“There hasn’t been enough attention,” Jones said. “I feel bad for (the Georgia woman). She needs attention, too. But we have six women murdered and three still missing. They need at least the same attention, don’t you think?”
George Cook, who runs the New Jersey-based alternative news organization Let’s Talk Honestly, said he’s been following the Rocky Mount case closely. Cook maintains a nationwide list of missing black women on his Web site because, he said, national media typically has little interest in such cases.
“I hate to crowd this issue with race because I’m sure police are doing everything they can,” Cook said. “But it’s hard not to wonder why there have been so few major news stories about this many murdered women, especially with three other women still missing.”
Authorities announced last month that the FBI was helping investigate the series of murders, which date back to 2005.
The bodies of the five black women, each with a history of drug abuse and suspected prostitution, have been found partially clothed and abandoned in remote locations outside the city during the past few years, prompting the recent national media attention.
Cook said the women’s lifestyles might make the story less appealing for TV news producers, but that shouldn’t take away from the importance of the story.
“A life is a life,” he said.
Jones and her group, which raised money to post photos of the victims on area billboards, want to keep the story in the news with hopes the attention could lead to answers. Jones wants city leaders and law enforcement officials to help in that cause.
“Where has the mayor been in all of this?” Jones said. “Why hasn’t he spoken out. Why hasn’t there been a press conference to let people know these women are missing? Why don’t we have search crews canvassing these fields, and why aren’t other city leaders speaking out to comfort these families or raise awareness of the missing?
“Maybe if those things were going on — if the community rallied together — Nancy Grace would want to do a segment. But it seems like a lot of people just don’t care.”
Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact the Rocky Mount Police Department at 252-972-1411.
By Mike Hixenbaugh Rocky Mount Telegram
A group of community organizers hopes to keep the attention of national media focused on Rocky Mount and a string of local murders that some believe are the work of a serial killer.
At least five Rocky Mount women, all black, have been abducted, killed and abandoned in the woods since 2005, and three other women are missing. Investigators believe the homicides, as well as the murder of a sixth woman yet to be identified, might be linked.
Stephanie Jones, who helped organize the group Murdered or Missing Sisters in the wake of the homicides, said Saturday she believes recent nationwide media coverage of the murders could lead to a break in the case.
Following a brief segment on CNN on Wednesday, the Rocky Mount story appeared on every major U.S. news Web site this week.
“But we have to keep the pressure on,” Jones said. “I know there has been a lot of coverage this week, but it still hasn’t received as much attention as it deserves.”
Rocky Mount Councilman Andre Knight agrees. Knight, also president of the local NAACP, said he fears if nothing new happens with the case during the next few days, the national media will move on. Already this week, the case has been overshadowed by national reports of other missing persons.
Producers with both CNN Headline News’ Nancy Grace and Fox News Live this week had planned in-depth segments on the Rocky Mount story — first reported more than two months ago — before canceling coverage hours before airtime. In both instances, producers replaced the story with news of a Georgia woman who was abducted Tuesday. The missing woman is white.
“There hasn’t been enough attention,” Jones said. “I feel bad for (the Georgia woman). She needs attention, too. But we have six women murdered and three still missing. They need at least the same attention, don’t you think?”
George Cook, who runs the New Jersey-based alternative news organization Let’s Talk Honestly, said he’s been following the Rocky Mount case closely. Cook maintains a nationwide list of missing black women on his Web site because, he said, national media typically has little interest in such cases.
“I hate to crowd this issue with race because I’m sure police are doing everything they can,” Cook said. “But it’s hard not to wonder why there have been so few major news stories about this many murdered women, especially with three other women still missing.”
Authorities announced last month that the FBI was helping investigate the series of murders, which date back to 2005.
The bodies of the five black women, each with a history of drug abuse and suspected prostitution, have been found partially clothed and abandoned in remote locations outside the city during the past few years, prompting the recent national media attention.
Cook said the women’s lifestyles might make the story less appealing for TV news producers, but that shouldn’t take away from the importance of the story.
“A life is a life,” he said.
Jones and her group, which raised money to post photos of the victims on area billboards, want to keep the story in the news with hopes the attention could lead to answers. Jones wants city leaders and law enforcement officials to help in that cause.
“Where has the mayor been in all of this?” Jones said. “Why hasn’t he spoken out. Why hasn’t there been a press conference to let people know these women are missing? Why don’t we have search crews canvassing these fields, and why aren’t other city leaders speaking out to comfort these families or raise awareness of the missing?
“Maybe if those things were going on — if the community rallied together — Nancy Grace would want to do a segment. But it seems like a lot of people just don’t care.”
Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact the Rocky Mount Police Department at 252-972-1411.
NC City on Edge as 9 Women Vanish
NC City on Edge as 9 Women Vanish
By ALYSIA PATTERSON,
ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. (Aug. 14) -- They spent their nights jumping in and out of strange cars, trolling otherwise empty streets lined with decaying storefronts and boarded-up homes. Many sold sex to support drug habits or children left in the care of worried, hardworking grandmothers.
Even when they were picked up for drugs or prostitution, nights in jail looming, they called home to let their families know they were OK. Then, one by one, the calls stopped.
Since 2005, nine women who lived at the edges of the poor community in this small North Carolina city have disappeared. Six bodies were found along rural roads just a few miles outside town, most so decomposed that investigators could not tell how they died. At least one of the women was strangled, and all the deaths have been classified as homicides. Three women are still missing.
Skip over this content
Murder Mystery in North Carolina
Since 2005, nine women have gone missing from Rocky Mount, N.C., a fact that has rattled some residents. Six bodies have been found and three women remain missing. All came from poor backgrounds with some involved in drugs and prostitution. Here, a billboard seeks information about the women.
Murdery Mystery in North Carolina
Since 2005, nine women have gone missing from Rocky Mount, N.C., a fact that has rattled some residents. Six bodies have been found and three women remain missing. All came from poor backgrounds with some involved in drugs and prostitution. Here, a billboard seeks information about the women.
Police will not say whether they suspect a serial killer, but people in the community about 60 miles northeast of Raleigh do, and they're impatient with law enforcement efforts to investigate the slayings.
After the latest body — that of 31-year-old Jarneice Hargrove — was found in June behind a burnt-out house that was once a crack den, local law enforcement and state police formed a task force. In July, the FBI got involved.
But friends and family say it didn't happen soon enough.
"We got someone out here that's snatching up females," said Stephanie Jones, a 28-year-old nursing student. "I mean, next person could be your grandmother, it could be me, it could be my mother, it could be my daughter."
Jones, who knew two of the victims, has founded a group that is raising money to publicize the slayings and search for those still missing. She says the cases are being swept under the rug because of the victims' lifestyles.
The lead investigator, Sheriff James Knight, said he cannot comment.
Rumors swirl about the identity of the killer, if there is just one. Some say he is an ex-military man or an ex-police officer because he leaves no evidence. Others believe he is exacting revenge on local women after contracting HIV from a prostitute.
Forensic psychologist Dr. Michael Teague said the killings are probably the work of one person.
"You're talking about a man who didn't finish high school, probably doesn't have a regular job, probably not married or in a stable relationship," he said.
Vivian Lord, chairwoman of the criminal justice department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said that if one killer is responsible, he is likely trying to cleanse the world of prostitutes or deliberately picking victims he knows won't be missed.
If it's the latter, he chose wrong when he killed Ernestine Battle. Her sister, Tynatta James, 64, remembers the February 2008 day the family reported Battle missing. It had been less than 48 hours since they last heard from the 50-year-old, but she always checked in, even from jail.
"We knew something wasn't right because she hadn't called," James said.
A month later, a man putting up a wire fence around his property down a rural stretch of road outside town found a badly decomposed body. The bodies of two other victims were found in the same area in 2007 and 2009.
In May, a DNA test identified the remains as Battle's. She was wearing only her underwear and police told James she was probably strangled, but they couldn't be sure because animals had dragged away a small throat bone that typically breaks when someone is killed that way.
"I'm still frustrated," James said. "I didn't really feel like they were doing all they could. I just feel like they recently started to get involved in the cases after the last lady."
For Alecia Johnson, the killings were a wake-up call. She knew most of the women: They all walked the streets of Rocky Mount together. She said she didn't wait for police to catch a killer. She stopped after the body of the first woman, 29-year-old Melody Wiggins, was found dumped in the woods in 2005.
"I used to walk these streets and jump in and out of cars. But then when that first girl Melody got killed I stopped that because I knew he would kill another," said Johnson, 41. "I hate for that to happen to her, but it probably saved my life. I have five babies."
Counting the names on one hand, she added, "There's probably five or six girls left around here that will jump in and out of cars. He really did kill the whole neighborhood."
Jones' group has raised enough money to post billboards with the faces of the missing and slain women. Now she is raising more to organize search teams for those whose bodies have not been found.
Juray Tucker, the mother of 37-year-old Yolanda Lancaster, missing since February, said she wants to help with fundraising but doesn't get much time now that she has to care for her daughter's children.
"Every day, every minute, every hour, I'm worried," she said. "It's constant on my mind and there ain't nothing I can do, ain't nothing I can do."
By ALYSIA PATTERSON,
ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. (Aug. 14) -- They spent their nights jumping in and out of strange cars, trolling otherwise empty streets lined with decaying storefronts and boarded-up homes. Many sold sex to support drug habits or children left in the care of worried, hardworking grandmothers.
Even when they were picked up for drugs or prostitution, nights in jail looming, they called home to let their families know they were OK. Then, one by one, the calls stopped.
Since 2005, nine women who lived at the edges of the poor community in this small North Carolina city have disappeared. Six bodies were found along rural roads just a few miles outside town, most so decomposed that investigators could not tell how they died. At least one of the women was strangled, and all the deaths have been classified as homicides. Three women are still missing.
Skip over this content
Murder Mystery in North Carolina
Since 2005, nine women have gone missing from Rocky Mount, N.C., a fact that has rattled some residents. Six bodies have been found and three women remain missing. All came from poor backgrounds with some involved in drugs and prostitution. Here, a billboard seeks information about the women.
Murdery Mystery in North Carolina
Since 2005, nine women have gone missing from Rocky Mount, N.C., a fact that has rattled some residents. Six bodies have been found and three women remain missing. All came from poor backgrounds with some involved in drugs and prostitution. Here, a billboard seeks information about the women.
Police will not say whether they suspect a serial killer, but people in the community about 60 miles northeast of Raleigh do, and they're impatient with law enforcement efforts to investigate the slayings.
After the latest body — that of 31-year-old Jarneice Hargrove — was found in June behind a burnt-out house that was once a crack den, local law enforcement and state police formed a task force. In July, the FBI got involved.
But friends and family say it didn't happen soon enough.
"We got someone out here that's snatching up females," said Stephanie Jones, a 28-year-old nursing student. "I mean, next person could be your grandmother, it could be me, it could be my mother, it could be my daughter."
Jones, who knew two of the victims, has founded a group that is raising money to publicize the slayings and search for those still missing. She says the cases are being swept under the rug because of the victims' lifestyles.
The lead investigator, Sheriff James Knight, said he cannot comment.
Rumors swirl about the identity of the killer, if there is just one. Some say he is an ex-military man or an ex-police officer because he leaves no evidence. Others believe he is exacting revenge on local women after contracting HIV from a prostitute.
Forensic psychologist Dr. Michael Teague said the killings are probably the work of one person.
"You're talking about a man who didn't finish high school, probably doesn't have a regular job, probably not married or in a stable relationship," he said.
Vivian Lord, chairwoman of the criminal justice department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said that if one killer is responsible, he is likely trying to cleanse the world of prostitutes or deliberately picking victims he knows won't be missed.
If it's the latter, he chose wrong when he killed Ernestine Battle. Her sister, Tynatta James, 64, remembers the February 2008 day the family reported Battle missing. It had been less than 48 hours since they last heard from the 50-year-old, but she always checked in, even from jail.
"We knew something wasn't right because she hadn't called," James said.
A month later, a man putting up a wire fence around his property down a rural stretch of road outside town found a badly decomposed body. The bodies of two other victims were found in the same area in 2007 and 2009.
In May, a DNA test identified the remains as Battle's. She was wearing only her underwear and police told James she was probably strangled, but they couldn't be sure because animals had dragged away a small throat bone that typically breaks when someone is killed that way.
"I'm still frustrated," James said. "I didn't really feel like they were doing all they could. I just feel like they recently started to get involved in the cases after the last lady."
For Alecia Johnson, the killings were a wake-up call. She knew most of the women: They all walked the streets of Rocky Mount together. She said she didn't wait for police to catch a killer. She stopped after the body of the first woman, 29-year-old Melody Wiggins, was found dumped in the woods in 2005.
"I used to walk these streets and jump in and out of cars. But then when that first girl Melody got killed I stopped that because I knew he would kill another," said Johnson, 41. "I hate for that to happen to her, but it probably saved my life. I have five babies."
Counting the names on one hand, she added, "There's probably five or six girls left around here that will jump in and out of cars. He really did kill the whole neighborhood."
Jones' group has raised enough money to post billboards with the faces of the missing and slain women. Now she is raising more to organize search teams for those whose bodies have not been found.
Juray Tucker, the mother of 37-year-old Yolanda Lancaster, missing since February, said she wants to help with fundraising but doesn't get much time now that she has to care for her daughter's children.
"Every day, every minute, every hour, I'm worried," she said. "It's constant on my mind and there ain't nothing I can do, ain't nothing I can do."
Check out other article:
Saturday, August 15, 2009
My interview with local reporter covering possible serial killings of black women in Rocky Mount NC.
George Cook of Let's Talk Honestly Interviews reporter Mike Hixenbaugh of the Rocky Mount Telegram, the reporter covering the case of missing and murdered black women in Rocky Mount for the local paper. They discuss:
*How the police are handling the case. Is race a factor?
*How the locals in Rocky Mount feel.
*The overall lack of news coverage.
*The current status of the case.
*How Nancy Grace and Fox News both bumped stories about the murders, and more.
Use link below to listen to the interview: http://www.letstalkhonestly.com/LTHSpecialReport.html
*How the police are handling the case. Is race a factor?
*How the locals in Rocky Mount feel.
*The overall lack of news coverage.
*The current status of the case.
*How Nancy Grace and Fox News both bumped stories about the murders, and more.
Use link below to listen to the interview: http://www.letstalkhonestly.com/LTHSpecialReport.html
Friday, August 14, 2009
News and Views: 8-14-2009
News and views from around the world:
The world oldest map found in Spain
Omorosa Finds Her Calling In Religion From the Womanist Musings Blog. Excellent perspective on how Omorosa is being used by the racialized/sexualized corporate media and mainstream society to tell American women not to be like her because of her supposed unladylike behavior.
George Sodini- Racist and Misogynist! Again, a very excellent post from Womanist Musings.
The world oldest map found in Spain
Omorosa Finds Her Calling In Religion From the Womanist Musings Blog. Excellent perspective on how Omorosa is being used by the racialized/sexualized corporate media and mainstream society to tell American women not to be like her because of her supposed unladylike behavior.
George Sodini- Racist and Misogynist! Again, a very excellent post from Womanist Musings.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Another commentary on IRs
The bigot from Chicago:
"I find it interesting that the black people are constantly dropping the race card, but interracial dating is very much in vogue these days. I am from the north, Chicago area, and I am of an age that probably tarnishes my views on this subject, but I have always thought that it is a good idea to keep the races as pure as possible. Dating and having children together are two separate areas, I realize, but I do not like the idea of different races even dating. I do not have one prejudiced bone in my body, so I am NOT coming from that direction in the least. My son dated two biracial girls and I could not have loved them more, but I was pleased that their relationships did not lead to marriage."
TO THAT PERSON FROM CHI-TOWN, YOU ARE RACIST PURE AND SIMPLE!!!
AND ANOTHER THING THAT PERSON FROM CHICAGO NEEDS TO CONSIDER IS THAT RACES ARE NOT PURE, NEVER HAVE AND NEVER WILL. PERHAPS THAT PERSON OPPOSE TO IR BECAUSE IT THREATENS ONE'S SENSE OF RACIAL/ETHNIC HIERARCHY. AS FOR BLACKS PULLING THE RACE CARD, WHAT ABOUT WHITES WHO DO? HOW ABOUT STEVE SAILER, WHO OFTEN DOES IT WHEN HE WRITES HIS COLUMNS AT ISTEVE.COM? OR JARED TAYLOR, WHO CONSTANTLY WRITES ABOUT THE INUDATION OF EURO-AMERICANS THROUGH NONWHITE IMMIGRATION AND INTERMARRIAGE AT AMERICAN RENAISSANCE MAGAZINE? OR DAVID YEAGLEY WHO RAVE AND RANTS ABOUT BLACKS TAKING OVER AMERICAN CULTURE? WHY THEY AREN'T CRITICIZED. I DON'T BUY IT FOR ONE MOMENT THAT "I'M NOT PREJUDICED" CRAP. YOU ARE AND IT'S TIME FOR THE CHICAGO PERSON TO FACE IT.THAT'S ALL THE RANT I HAVE REGARDING THAT IDIOT.STEFANIE
"I find it interesting that the black people are constantly dropping the race card, but interracial dating is very much in vogue these days. I am from the north, Chicago area, and I am of an age that probably tarnishes my views on this subject, but I have always thought that it is a good idea to keep the races as pure as possible. Dating and having children together are two separate areas, I realize, but I do not like the idea of different races even dating. I do not have one prejudiced bone in my body, so I am NOT coming from that direction in the least. My son dated two biracial girls and I could not have loved them more, but I was pleased that their relationships did not lead to marriage."
TO THAT PERSON FROM CHI-TOWN, YOU ARE RACIST PURE AND SIMPLE!!!
AND ANOTHER THING THAT PERSON FROM CHICAGO NEEDS TO CONSIDER IS THAT RACES ARE NOT PURE, NEVER HAVE AND NEVER WILL. PERHAPS THAT PERSON OPPOSE TO IR BECAUSE IT THREATENS ONE'S SENSE OF RACIAL/ETHNIC HIERARCHY. AS FOR BLACKS PULLING THE RACE CARD, WHAT ABOUT WHITES WHO DO? HOW ABOUT STEVE SAILER, WHO OFTEN DOES IT WHEN HE WRITES HIS COLUMNS AT ISTEVE.COM? OR JARED TAYLOR, WHO CONSTANTLY WRITES ABOUT THE INUDATION OF EURO-AMERICANS THROUGH NONWHITE IMMIGRATION AND INTERMARRIAGE AT AMERICAN RENAISSANCE MAGAZINE? OR DAVID YEAGLEY WHO RAVE AND RANTS ABOUT BLACKS TAKING OVER AMERICAN CULTURE? WHY THEY AREN'T CRITICIZED. I DON'T BUY IT FOR ONE MOMENT THAT "I'M NOT PREJUDICED" CRAP. YOU ARE AND IT'S TIME FOR THE CHICAGO PERSON TO FACE IT.THAT'S ALL THE RANT I HAVE REGARDING THAT IDIOT.STEFANIE
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