who killed theresa?

GQ story on alleged serial killings splits opinions
By Brie Handgraaf
Rocky Mount Telegram

The people interviewed for a recent national story on Rocky Mount’s alleged serial killer case are divided on the published product.

Jackie Wiggins, mother of victim Jackie Nikelia ‘Nikki’ Thorpe, spoke with the author of the article in June’s issue of “Gentleman’s Quarterly” last fall and said she has mixed opinions about how it turned out.

“I was pleased with it as far as the publication about the girls and stuff, but his interview with this cabbie person was kind of shocking to me,” she said. “He came out with a whole lot of information that could have been useful earlier (in the investigation).”

She said she is reserving judgment on some of the quotes from officials used in the article.
“I think they said some things that now I hope they regret,” she said. “I guess the reporter reported as he heard it, but I’m waiting to hear their version of it.”

Rocky Mount Mayor David Combs was negatively portrayed in the article. Combs said the author took him out of context.

“Most people assume the mayor knows everything that is going on, but I’m not always aware of what the police department is working on,” he said. “He also made a comment about how I wasn’t at the candlelight vigil, but I really didn’t know about it. Nobody called me so I never knew about it.”

He added the article was skewed to overplay the race issue.

“I’m not sure I realized the direction he was going with it,” he said. “He wanted to paint a picture between Edgecombe and Nash counties, but I think, overall, that as a mayor, I look at it as all one city. I think because he is writing a book on race in the South, the whole article was based on race more than anything.”

Wiggins said she also believes the focus on race was dramatized.

“When he talked about the train tracks diving the blacks and whites, I think it could have been worded better,” she said. “I guess that was just his way of getting the point across, but our schools are integrated. I feel like some things were stretched.”

Rocky Mount councilman and local NAACP president Andre Knight said race does play into how much media attention, or lack thereof, the case has gotten.

“I think (the author) used race as a backdrop,” he said. “I think when it comes to African-American women and children (as victims of crime), they don’t get near the coverage other nationalities get in the media.”

Knight and Wiggins commended the author for his portrayal of the girls — not just how they died, but how they lived as well.

“He gave the women a real face. He talked about not just their addictions, but how these women were actually engaged in society. They were good people,” Knight said. “He was trying to actually put a face other than a mugshot on these women. I think he gave them some dignity as well.”

Wiggins actually was pleased with the relatively graphic portrayal of the victims’ deaths in the article.

“He was printing that to make people see just how tragic and demeaning the bodies were left,” she said. “He described what it was like. He put it like it was. I think the readers can see what we saw and how we felt.”

Knight said he hopes the national media attention will help the investigation.
“This case hasn’t gotten nearly as much attention as it needs,” he said. “We don’t need this to go by the wayside. It is still very important to the families and the community.”
Combs said the attention will likely taper off.

“Other communities have had similar things happen and I hate to say this, but soon the national media moves on to something new,” he said. “Hopefully, someone will see this in the media and come forward with new information.

“I just hope people take it for what it is. It is a magazine article by someone trying to write a book.

“He took a lot of liberty along the way. It is what it is.”

Lack of media coverage indeed; I’d never heard of this case:

Human remains found in an aboriginal community south of Montreal on Tuesday have been identified as those of a woman missing since 2006.

The bones have been identified as those of Tiffany Morrison, 25, from the Kahnawake reserve, officials with the local police force confirmed on Friday.

The remains were found by a construction worker in a wooded area near the Mercier Bridge, which links Montreal to the South Shore region, said Warren White, an investigator with the Kahnawake Mohawk Peacekeepers.

The bones had been covered with some branches, White said.

Morrison was reportedly last seen in a taxi with a man on the Kahnawake reserve, southwest of Montreal, on June 18, 2006.

Morrison’s family had been critical of what it said was a lack of media coverage of her disappearance.

The Vermont State Police say a search in Richford for a 17-year-old Sheldon girl who disappeared in 2004 was unsuccessful.

Vermont State Police Search and Rescue Team with help from a K-9 dog unit searched Prive Hill Road on Monday for evidence linked to the disappearance of Brianna Maitland. But authorities say no evidence was found.

Maitland was last seen on March 19, 2004 at the Black Lantern Inn in Montgomery, where she worked as a dishwasher.

Her car was found the next day a short distance away, but she has not been seen since.

Police believe she was the victim of foul play.

The Maitland family continues to offer a $20,000 reward for information leading to her location and to the person responsible for her disappearance.

(May 10) — Investigators in Vermont launched a ground search today in a renewed effort to locate Brianna Maitland, whose baffling disappearance six years ago sparked national media attention.

The new sweep, which focuses on an area not previously searched, was prompted by information that authorities received “as part of the ongoing investigation,” Sgt. Tara Thomas, public information officer for the Vermont State Police, told AOL News.

Police have said there is a strong possibility that Maitland, who was 17 when she vanished, was the victim of foul play.

Dozens of searchers, including crime scene technicians and search and rescue personnel, are concentrating today on an area along Prive Hill Road in Richford. The location is a few miles from where Maitland is believed to have gone missing, Thomas said.

Maitland was last seen at approximately 11:20 p.m. on March 19, 2004, as she was finishing her shift as a dishwasher at the Black Lantern Inn in Montgomery.

The following day, Maitland’s car, a green 1985 Oldsmobile 88, was found backed into a barn at an abandoned farmhouse on Route 118, roughly one mile from the Black Lantern Inn. The keys were missing, but two uncashed paychecks were on the front seat, and other miscellaneous belongings were found strewn on the ground around the car.

During a search of the area, investigators found a gun and drug paraphernalia inside the farmhouse, which had stood vacant for roughly six years.

According to the Cue Center for Missing Persons, it was not the first time investigators been to the farmhouse. In 1986, Myron and Harry Dutchburn, two brothers who lived at the home, were brutally beaten and robbed. The brothers were later placed in a nursing home due to their injuries. The crime remains unsolved.

More than 500 police officers and volunteers searched the woods around the farmhouse, but found no further signs of the missing teen.

Vermont State Police Capt. Glenn Hall said there is “no evidence” to indicate that Maitland had vanished on her own accord. On the day of her disappearance, she had passed her General Equivalency Diploma exam and was making plans to enroll in college.

Authorities thought they got a break in the case in October 2007, when a weathered pair of blue jeans was found in a wooded area not far from where Maitland went missing. Her parents told police they were the same brand and style their daughter would have worn. But state police technicians were unable to collect enough DNA from the jeans to determine if they were hers.

Maitland’s parents, Bruce and Kellie Maitland, were unavailable for comment today. Both have been critical of the investigation in the past, especially when police decided to block a potential search by Texas EquuSearch, a missing-persons search and recovery group that has been involved with several high-profile cases, including that of Natalee Holloway in Aruba.

Investigators did not comment publicly on that decision, other than to say they were still following up on leads.

“I wish that no other parents would have to suffer what my husband and I have been through,” Kellie Maitland said in a 2008 statement to the media. “I wish that somehow this whole thing could have been prevented.”

According to Thomas, Maitland’s parents, who now reside in New York, are believed to be en route to Vermont today. It is not yet known if they will be making a statement to the media.

As of late afternoon today, Thomas said it is too soon to determine how long the search will continue. “It all depends on whether we find anything,” she said.

According to a state police press release issued today, the Maitland family is offering a $20,000 reward for information, which includes $10,000 for anyone who can identify where Brianna is and $10,000 for anyone with information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for her disappearance. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Vermont State Police at 802-524-5993.

Victim slams police over Col. Williams case

Last Updated: Thursday, April 29, 2010 | 8:54 PM ET
CBC News

On Thursday, Col. Russell Williams was charged with 82 more offences, including 46 counts related to break-ins in Tweed. (Department of National Defence/Canadian Press)A sexual assault victim from Tweed, Ont., said she felt “totally betrayed” by police when she learned Col. Russell Williams had been charged with dozens of other crimes dating back to 2007.

“I’m just sick about it,” the woman told CBC News on Thursday. “They kept telling me this [assault] was a one-time occurrence — this was just a sex pervert that wanted pictures and it’s their experience that this person would never return.”

The woman was sexually assaulted and photographed during a home invasion on Sept. 30, 2009. In February, 47-year-old Williams, then commander of Canadian Forces Base Trenton, was charged in that attack, along with an earlier home invasion and sexual assault.

He was also charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Jessica Lloyd, 27, and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37.

On Thursday, he was charged with 82 more offences, including 46 counts related to break-and-enters in Tweed, where Williams had a cottage. The other counts related to similar incidents in Ottawa’s Fallingbrook neighbourhood, where Williams lived until recently.

The victim of the Sept. 30 attack now believes her assailant may have visited her house a year earlier, when an article of her clothing went missing.

Williams was earlier charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Jessica Lloyd, 27, and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37, as well as sexual assaults during two home invasions. (Alex Tavshunsky/CBC)She thinks police should have warned the public about the crime wave in the community.

“They were trying to solve this investigation without scaring people,” she said. “They weren’t getting it [the information] out. This was a serious thing … I feel that they’ve let a lot of people down. I feel a lot of things could have been prevented.”

She isn’t the only Tweed resident shocked by the latest charges and left questioning why police were so quiet about the crimes taking place.

Roseann Trudeau, advertising and circulation manager of the Tweed News, said she had no idea until Thursday that there had been so many break-ins in the community.

“This accused killer was [allegedly] in these homes — all these homes! That’s just unbelievable,” she said, adding that she doesn’t know how police failed to connect the cases.

Trudeau said little attention was paid after the first sex assault that Williams was later charged with. Police did issue a warning after the second assault and reported some break-and-enters, but only on an individual basis.

“How come the public wasn’t alerted of someone like this in the area so that we could be on the lookout?” she asked. “And then just maybe Jessica [Lloyd] would be alive today.”

Well, it’s a start. Though many are crying, too little too late:

Memorial service staged to unite community

By J. Eric Eckard
Rocky Mount Telegram
Sunday, April 25, 2010

At a Sunday night event set to honor the victims of a suspected serial killer linked to at least 10 deaths over the past seven years in the Twin Counties, Jackie Wiggins was supposed to talk about the purpose of the tribute.

She looked out at the crowd of about 150 people gathered at Church of God of Deliverance in Rocky Mount and said she’d let the attendance speak for her.

“The fact that you all gathered with us — that is our purpose,” said Wiggins, who daughter, Jackie “Nikki” Thorpe, was one of the victims in the investigation that includes local, state and federal agencies.

Wiggins also is the president of Parents and Relatives of the Missing and Murdered, a group organized in 2009 and made up of the victims’ families and friends.

The Sunday night tribute, put on by PROMM, featured the Rev. Dr. William Barber, president of the N.C. NAACP. Barber gathered representatives from law enforcement, victims’ families and the City Council together on stage to let “the whole world know we are united.”

“I’m more than moved by the courage of these parents and family members,” said Barber, who stood with Andre Knight, city councilman and president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Barber’s sermon focused on the sinful woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with oil. Barber likened the sinful woman in the Bible with the victims in this case, most of whom were linked to drug use and prostitution before their deaths.
“But they’re still human beings, and tonight, we dignify them,” Barber said. “It doesn’t matter if they’re ladies of society or ladies of the street, violence and murder is wrong.”

Barber also talked about Maya Angelou, former poet laureate, who worked briefly as a prostitute as a teenager. Barber said Angelou was able to rise above her stint in that life, while the missing and murdered in the Rocky Mount will never reach their potential.

“We don’t know what these women could have become,” he said.

During the two-hour ceremony, family members lighted a candle for each of the 10 murder victims and two missing women who are feared dead. They spoke briefly about their loved ones before lighting the candles.

Edgecombe County Sheriff James Knight and Rocky Mount Police Chief John Manley also spoke during the event, ensuring the victims’ families that investigators are taking the deaths and the investigation seriously. About a year ago, the sheriff announced a task force investigation into the similar deaths of several Rocky Mount women.

“To the families, your cries have not been unheard,” Knight said. “Things have happened during the investigation that we haven’t been able to share.

“Although we couldn’t share, it didn’t mean I didn’t care.”

Law enforcement officers still are working the case, Knight said, and local investigators are expected to meet with FBI officials today “about some things that have come up.”

Antwan Maurice Pittman has been charged with one of the victim’s deaths — Taraha Nicholson — and authorities said he’s a person of interest in at least five of the other murders. The 31-year-old Rocky Mount man is charged with first-degree murder in Nicholson’s death.

Pittman, a registered sex offender, was arrested in September, and authorities said his DNA was found on Nicholson’s body.

So far, the bodies of Nicholson, Thorpe, Jarniece Hargrove, Christine Boone, Ernestine Battle, Denise Williams, Elizabeth Smallwood, Roberta Williams, Melody Wiggins and Travis Harrison have been found in wooded areas northeast of Rocky Mount. Two others — Yolanda “Snap” Lancaster and Joyce Renee Durham — are reported missing.
Two weeks ago, 100 N.C. National Guard soldiers helped law enforcement officials and volunteers search for victims along Seven Bridges Road, where five women already had been found.

“We can’t write these cases off,” Manley said Sunday night. “Any one of them could have been any one of us. And every one of them has value and meaning.”

Forgive me for the tracheal vomiting: North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue has called in the National Guard to aid in the search for the remaining 2 missing women from the total of 11-ish persons who have turned up dead in Edgecombe County.

This reminds me of the dangers of overkill. When I was a kid I often trampled my mother’s flower garden, then tired to fix the problem by overcompensating: I once replaced her petunias with a maple tree – earnest, but conspicuous.

For all my criticisms of the Surete du Quebec, I have always admired their cunning dealing with problems. When I brought to their attention that they were in need of a cold case squad, did they acknowledge the problem? Hardly. They initiated a cold case squad, then pretended the idea was theirs all along, even going so far as to suggest that such a unit had been in place for years before the public was screaming for the need…

… gotta admire the balls.

Which brings us back to the case of the alleged Rocky Mount Serial Killer. You don’t just call in the National Guard without some implicit acknowledgment of the associated guilt: yada-yada-yada these were minority victims… yada-yada-yada we did nothing FOR YEARS until the public finally caught on to the obvious negligence of our inaction.

I leave it to you, dear reader, to fill in the rest. Here is the article from today’s News & Observer:

N.C. National Guard to aid in search for two missing Edgecombe women

BY THOMASI MCDONALD – STAFF WRITER
RALEIGH — Calling for a “more boots on the ground” approach, Gov. Bev Perdue has activated the North Carolina National Guard to help the Edgecombe County Task Force search for two missing women, the governor’s office announced today.

Edgecombe County Sheriff James L. Knight requested the assistance, according to a press statement from Perdue’s office.

Knight first contacted over the weekend, Rueben Young, the state’s secretary of crime control and public safety, asking for the National Guard’s help with finding if the remains of two other woman who have been reported missing, Yolonda Reee “Snap” Lancaster, 37, and Joyce Renee Durham, 26, are among the the bodies of five women who have been found in the woods off Seven Bridges Road in Northern Edgecombe County. Two were found not far away. A third was found near Scotland Neck.

Lancaster’s family has not seen her since March 2008. Durham was reported missing in June of 2007.

The guardsmen will be searching around Seven Bridges road near Whitakers, where the remains of five women have been found since August 2007.

“Having more boots on the ground will help law enforcement agencies cover a larger area and speed up search efforts,” Perdue said.

“We started to get more boots on the ground this morning,” Chrissy Pearson, a governor’s spokeswoman said today.

The National Guard provided about 100 soldiers who searched today for Lancaster and Durham. The soldiers are from the 1132nd and 514th military police companies, headquartered out of Rocky Mount and Greenville respectively. The task force, which has local, state and federal authorities, will be searching throughout the week.

In all, eight bodies have been found.

The skeletal remains of the latest victim, Roberta Williams, 40, was found March 27, in the woods off Seven Bridges Road by a group of all-terrain vehicle riders.

It’s not clear how Williams was found, but sheriff’s investigators are treating it as a suspicious death.

Earlier that month, on March 5, authorities found the remains of Christine Marie Boone, 43, in a wooded area in Scotland Neck in Halifax County.

After Williams’ body was found, Knight said his office notified the families of Lancaster and Durham.

But Williams had not been reported missing. When investigators probed her disappearance they obtained her medical records and the state medical examiner’s office used the information to identify her body, Knight said.

A task force consisting of the sheriff’s office, Rocky Mount police and the State Bureau of Investigation, began working together in June to determine if the women’s deaths were related and possibly the work of a serial killer.

In September. a grand jury indicted Antwan Maurice Pittman in the slaying of Taraha Shenice Nicholson, one of the women whose bodies have been found in the rural section of the county. Authorities have not said if Pittman would be charged with any of the other deaths.

The first victim, Melody Wiggins, 29, was found by police May 29, 2005 on Noble Mill Pond Road.

The partially skeletal, nude remains of Jackie Thorpe, 35, were found Aug. 17, 2007 in a trash heap behind a burned out crack house off Seven Bridges Road.

On March 13, 2008, the remains of Ernestine Battle, 50, were found facedown in the woods. Her remains were unclothed.

The skeletal remains of Jarneice “Sunshine” Hargrove, 31, were discovered June 29 by a migrant farmer working in a field.

The remains of Elizabeth Jane Smallwood, 33, were discovered in February of last year by Rocky Mount city employees and state prison inmates in a wooded area on Melton Road.

All of the women were African American and living on the margins of society with a history of drugs or prostitution and had disappeared. Family members and friends have said that some of the women knew each other.

News this week that  Andrew Douglas Dalzell was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Asheville to more than 26 years in federal prison for knowingly attempting to entice an individual, whom he believed was a minor child, to engage in sexual activity. Sounds a bit harsh until you learn that Dalzell is the lead suspect in the 10-year-old unsolved case of Debbie Key, who has not been seen alive since she disappeared  from a Carrboro, North Carolina pool hall one December evening. Oh yeah… and a couple of years ago Dalzell confessed to murdering her, but the bleeding-heart Orange County court threw the case out the window onto Churton street, where her grieving friends picked up the pieces and managed to continue a fragile vigil for the past 10 years.

Yes, for the last time… my part in all of this: I bought the house where Dalzell was living at the time of Key’s disappearance, and there was a period of several months where my life was turned upsidedown while local authorities searched the property frantically for a body (you can read it alllllllll here).

For me, I’m glad Dalzell finally got some of what he deserved. Now if he has any shards of decency he’ll finally reveal to authorities where he dumped the body so that Debbie’s family can have some much deserved peace (I’m not betting on him doing this: he’ll die with his disgusting secret.). And when it comes to justice and North Carolina I’m a pessimist. Wait for an appeal to overturn this verdict and Dalzell’s sentence to be reduced. That’s how the shoe drops.

Funny… on Thursday I went into U Mall in Chapel Hill for the first time in months. U Mall is a fixture in Chapel Hill, one of my favorite stores is Hungates, a hobby shop where I love to go and look at the trains and Revell models. Hungates has been there for 30 years, though recently it has struggled. It is remarkably the same junk I looked at as a kid growing up in Pierrefonds, Quebec. Hobby shops were my refuge from my sister who could be annoying at times. Recently I’ve haunted Hungates to purchase igniters for my daughter’s model rockets. And Hungates is where Andrew Dalzell worked for a time, though if I ever saw him in there I was never aware of it. Hungates ultimately lead to Dalzell’s initial arrests (they discovered he had stole merchandise and lifted from the till… go figure).

When I went into U Mall, Hungates had closed its doors for good.

So let’s move on.

Two disappointments cloaked as victories this week (the other I’ll get to shortly)…

The first is the discovery of remains in Edgecombe County last Saturday that have now been positively identified as those of Roberta Williams. I have avoided commenting on this recent newsoid for fear of flogging the Rocky Mount Missing Women story into the ground. My contempt for how authorities have mishandled these cases is hardly a secret, so let’s just spell it out:

Blatant racism… 11 black people are murdered or go missing in an area the size of a postage stamp and for nearly a decade no one manages to give a tinker’s cuss about the matter. Yes, deja shades of Robert Pickton and the Vancouver downtown Eastside murders all over again. It only took the Olympic games for B.C. to recover from that tragedy, so what do you think is in store for the tiny impoverished East Carolina region of Rocky Mount? I will tell you: the trauma of endless fear, self-loathing and humiliation.

It is no balm that Rocky Mount chief of police has finally… glacially… come forward and stated what has been obvious to my five-year-old child all along:  ”It’s clear that we are dealing with a suspected serial killer.”.

Thank you chief, you can go back to whatever busy work has occupied you for the last decade (perhaps there’s an abandoned vehicle that needs towing?). This week NC Wanted anchor Gerald Owens finally grew a pair and boldly asked of the chief, “how many more victims are there?”. Thanks for showing up Gerald, where have you been? This isn’t about giving your Kodak image the perfect frame for tragedy: this is a real story, with real families that are suffering: you should have been in the game years ago.

While we all sit and wait for this to play out (ya, as if it’s some kind of parlor game), the prime suspect, Antwan Pittman has been sitting in jail for 8 months. What are authorities waiting for? For a gun to literally smoke? Meanwhile victims’ families continue to be traumatized daily by the mistakes and missteps of an uncaring and insensitive media and justice system.

Let’s not forget that in the midst of this madness Newsweek got it right 5 months ago:

“For the families who just want to locate their daughters or bring closure to their murders, the investigation has been a long, drawn-out process. Tucker speaks about her daughter in the past tense, quickly catches herself, and shifts to the present tense, emphasizing her commitment to finding her daughter. “As far as the investigation goes, I just hope they continue to do the best they can to put closure to the missing girls and the girls that have been found,” Tucker says. “Whatever it is, we are here waiting.”

“Regardless of drug addiction or other problems, that still doesn’t give a person the right to kill another,” says Knight. “If we can give a terrorist a day in court, we can get these women justice.”"

BATTLEBORO, N.C. — Skeletal remains were found Saturday off Seven Bridges Road, between Battleboro and Whitakers in Edgecombe County. This is same rural area where the remains of several Rocky Mount women were found dead over the past four years.

Around 1:23 p.m., four-wheeler riders found the skeletal remains approximately 20 yards inside the woods, a news release from the Edgecombe County Sheriff’s office states.

The bodies of Taraha Nicholson, 29, Jarneice Hargrove, 31, Jackie Thorpe, 35, Ernestine Battle, 50, and Melody Wiggins, 29, were all found in fields within a 10-mile radius of one another in Edgecombe County. The body of Christine Boone, 43, was found this month about 20 miles away in Scotland Neck.

Each woman was black, reported missing and had a history of drug use or prostitution. Family members and friends have said that many knew each other.

A special task force of local, state and federal authorities has been investigating the deaths, as well as the disappearances of two other Edgecombe County women, Yolanda Lancaster and Joyce Durham.

Knight said the missing women’s families were notified Saturday about the human remains discovery.
“My nerves are just shot,” said Winston Kemp, Durham’s stepfather.

Durham has been missing since June 2007. Kemp said authorities told him that they don’t yet know the identification or the cause of death for the skeletal remains found Saturday.

“Is it her or is it not? I don’t know,” he said.

Lancaster has been missing since February 2009. Authorities said both missing women have similar profiles as the other Rocky Mount women and that they are considering a possible connection.

Meanwhile, the investigation into the slain Rocky Mount women is ongoing.

Authorities have charged Antwan Maurice Pittman, 31, with first-degree murder in Nicholson’s death. But they have been relatively quiet about whether he might be suspected in any of the other deaths.

Records show Pittman also once lived near a wooded area off Seven Bridges Road where remains of three of the slain women were found.

A North Carolina Highway Patrol trooper also arrested Pittman for driving while impaired and driving with a revoked license after finding him along Seven Bridges Road on April 25, 2009 – that same day family members last reported seeing Hargrove, according to the warrant.

Hargrove’s remains were found on June 29, 2009, about 200 yards from where the trooper said Pittman was parked.
Thorpe’s remains were found Aug. 17, 2007, in the same area along Seven Bridges Road. She had been reported missing in May 2007.

Battle’s remains were found in the same area on March 14, 2008. She had been missing since February 2008.

Anyone with information about the slain women or the human remains found Saturday is asked to call the Edgecombe County Sheriff’s Office at 252-641-7911 or Rocky Mount Crime Stoppers at 252-977-1111.