Unsolved Triple Murder, North Carolina, 1972

[docyabut2]

Hi all:) like you all to know some of my back ground. I`m 73 years old and right now have a hubby in hospice care in our home . My son and his four kids moved in with us because of hard times and its really a busy day, but I remember my Grandmother who baby sat us and brought those detective magazines trying to solved old cases showing us, so I guess I'm at where she was. This case is the most intriguing case, so do forgive me if I do go on and on.

Edited June 12, 2015 by docyabut2

[asheonce]

All I get is Oops! This link appears to be broken

sent you a PM

[docyabut2]

Gee regi if you looked at the satellite map and really zoom in, you can see a small road and a fence. but it on the side of the Durams house not behind.right next to the house beside them.

looking at it again, it does looked more like a path then a road , but there is a fence.

Edited June 12, 2015 by docyabut2

[Regi]

Gee regi if you looked at the satellite map and really zoom in, you can see a small road and a fence. but it on the side of the Durams house not behind.right next to the house beside them.

looking at it again, it does looked more like a path then a road , but there is a fence.

Well, Docy, I guess they could have been referring to the Durham's backyard as "a wide hollow", although that really doesn't sound right to me. As I recall, the info is that (at the time) there were 8-10 houses on that hill and it looks about the same today with each situated on at least one acre lots, but personally, I wouldn't refer to any of those properties as a "pasture" because when I think of a pasture, I imagine a rather expansive and open area and not the immediate surroundings of a home.

Anyway, it's been 43 years and so I think a 43-year old satellite map would certainly be helpful!

[GlitterRose]

I don't know if this has been stated already, and there are 41 pages to sift through. You'd think they would have been able to check phone records to see if a call was ever made. Even in 1972, it seems like they would have been able to do this.

[mbrn30000]

I don't know if this has been stated already, and there are 41 pages to sift through. You'd think they would have been able to check phone records to see if a call was ever made. Even in 1972, it seems like they would have been able to do this.

back then, unless there was a toll call, there were no records of calls.

[docyabut2]

Hi all, I guess if that evidence of the matching tire tracks is true, it only goes to show that someone was planning to go to the Durham's house to killed them,of which makes me think it could have been the Halls and Cecil , knowing they would to take the Duhams car for the hook up, like that it was all planned out before hand to make it looked like a robbery.Contract killers or robbers who wound rob, would not have made it look like a robbery, they would have went in killed them and left.

Edited June 13, 2015 by docyabut2

[docyabut2]

More and more it appears to me it was the Halls in some way or the other. There are so many cases of kids killing their parents for some reason.

[docyabut2]

And the whole odd thing is they got stuck and couldn't leave the scene.

Edited June 13, 2015 by docyabut2

[docyabut2]

Well, Docy, I guess they could have been referring to the Durham's backyard as "a wide hollow", although that really doesn't sound right to me. As I recall, the info is that (at the time) there were 8-10 houses on that hill and it looks about the same today with each situated on at least one acre lots, but personally, I wouldn't refer to any of those properties as a "pasture" because when I think of a pasture, I imagine a rather expansive and open area and not the immediate surroundings of a home.

Anyway, it's been 43 years and so I think a 43-year old satellite map would certainly be helpful!

You are right I don`nt see a wide hollow behind the Durum's house, unless lots and lots of trees grew up there since then.

A picture of the house at that time.

Edited June 13, 2015 by docyabut2

[Vincennes]

Well, Docy, I guess they could have been referring to the Durham's backyard as "a wide hollow", although that really doesn't sound right to me. As I recall, the info is that (at the time) there were 8-10 houses on that hill and it looks about the same today with each situated on at least one acre lots, but personally, I wouldn't refer to any of those properties as a "pasture" because when I think of a pasture, I imagine a rather expansive and open area and not the immediate surroundings of a home.

Anyway, it's been 43 years and so I think a 43-year old satellite map would certainly be helpful!

I've just been "dropping in" every now and again catching up on the comments. I'm quoting your comment here, Reg, just because I think it exemplifies that there might be some very distinct differences in the way people in this area of North Carolina might see property, blinding snow storms, etc. that is different from other areas of the US. I don't think they would be meaning anything like like Texas or Ohio pasture land !

We might have a reader/poster who is much more familiar with that area than I am but I did have occasion to drive through that area many times starting in about 1966 through the 70's. I remember MT. Airy and that region quite clearly because it was so picturesque. The town sat below what was the main highway to Winston/Salem and on down to Florida (2 lane) in it sat in I quess what they would refer to as a "hollow." I can remember there was a sign there informing that Andy Griffith was from that area and that he had used Mt. Airy as the basis for his creation of "Mayberry."

This was an area just and I mean just as within a few miles of coming through some really serious mountain terrain and that time it was also really, really, forested. When I think of driving through North Carolina back then I think of the movie, "The Last of the Mohicans," the one with Daniel Day Lewis. Most all of that movie was filmed in North Carolina state parks not really all that different from what I remember that terrain and much of that mountainous area of NC being like back then. Might be worth a watch if you want to get a little idea of just how isolated Mt. Airy/Boone and their house probably was. (Daniel Day-Lewis insisted on the movie and his scenes actually being filmed on those locations so that he could get into the Indian character.)

I have one other thought every time I read these articles, starting with the initial article on the cold case that is from a Winston/Salem newspaper. Another area we were through all the time when my ex was in the Marine Corp. at Camp Pendleton. Although it does seem to me that there have been some recent climate changes and they now seem to be getting more snow storms (like last year) than they were used to getting through the mid 60s / 70s, When we were living there we were actually amused by what happened when a "snow storm" would hit them. Honestly, it seemed like a dusting of snow would cause them to drive their cars straight off the roads. A large percent of the population was clueless how to drive in snow ! Here I'm talking at least the Winston / Salem area. Now, with Boone/Mt. Airy being more in the mountains maybe they were used to getting a little more but I'm still left questioning if what the Winston/Salem newspaper referred to as a "blinding snow storm" might be anything at all like what you and I, Docy, would consider blinding snow. However, that jeep being stuck and abandoned just a short distance from the house does fit in with what I'm saying here. Typical of what we laughed at NC drivers doing.

I'm just mentioning all of this because it just might temper the thought patterns that these murders were out and about in such "storm" circumstances, why the jeep was abandoned and the "atmosphere" of the area their home was located in.

http://www.almanac.c...oone/1972-02-03

http://www.wundergro...reqdb.wmo=99999

Per these almanac weather links, is what we have here news writers taking a quick look at reports and not really checking out what was actually going on ??

Edited June 13, 2015 by Vincennes

[Regi]

I've just been "dropping in" every now and again catching up on the comments. I'm quoting your comment here, Reg, just because I think it exemplifies that there might be some very distinct differences in the way people in this area of North Carolina might see property, blinding snow storms, etc. that is different from other areas of the US. I don't think they would be meaning anything like like Texas or Ohio pasture land !

I considered that but it was also in the way they described where those areas were located in relation to one another. To me "behind the Durham home" is the road and so I thought they must have been referring to the other side of the road when they described the area as a "wide hollow".

I have one other thought every time I read these articles, starting with the initial article on the cold case that is from a Winston/Salem newspaper. Another area we were through all the time when my ex was in the Marine Corp. at Camp Pendleton. Although it does seem to me that there have been some recent climate changes and they now seem to be getting more snow storms (like last year) than they were used to getting through the mid 60s / 70s, When we were living there we were actually amused by what happened when a "snow storm" would hit them. Honestly, it seemed like a dusting of snow would cause them to drive their cars straight off the roads. A large percent of the population was clueless how to drive in snow ! Here I'm talking at least the Winston / Salem area. Now, with Boone/Mt. Airy being more in the mountains maybe they were used to getting a little more but I'm still left questioning if what the Winston/Salem newspaper referred to as a "blinding snow storm" might be anything at all like what you and I, Docy, would consider blinding snow. However, that jeep being stuck and abandoned just a short distance from the house does fit in with what I'm saying here. Typical of what we laughed at NC drivers doing.

I'm just mentioning all of this because it just might temper the thought patterns that these murders were out and about in such "storm" circumstances, why the jeep was abandoned and the "atmosphere" of the area their home was located in.

http://www.almanac.c...oone/1972-02-03

http://www.wundergro...reqdb.wmo=99999

Per these almanac weather links, is what we have here news writers taking a quick look at reports and not really checking out what was actually going on ??

Good info there, Vin!

Yeah, the roads weren't slick from heavy snow!

About the Jimmy off in the ditch, it's never made sense to me that that road was taken to begin with except to use it as a place to ditch the Jimmy.

So if there were "identical tracks" at the end of Clyde Townsend Road, then we'd consider that another 4-wheel drive was involved, right? What do you think?

Edited June 13, 2015 by regi

[Vincennes]

I considered that but it was also in the way they described where those areas were located in relation to one another. To me "behind the Durham home" is the road and so I thought they must have been referring to the other side of the road when they described the area as a "wide hollow".

Hard telling what they might have meant by that term. My impression back then it was very much Andy Griffith territory. Probably would have been phrased "Ova there in that wide holler." What I clearly remember each time we came around the curve and Mt. Airy was visible below, I felt like from that point we might live through the rest of the drive and not be hanging on another cliff at the edge of another hairpin turn. And I remember looking back to forested mountain. To live 10 miles outside of Mt. Airy would have been remote and I see from the map Boone has to have been even more remote. Thinking back on these impressions I actually think that "wide hollow" could lay behind their house. It makes sense way back when those roads were created (before the houses) they would try to run them through the "hollows." My guess then, for what it's worth, is that is what they were talking about. The joke was that they bred their cattle there so that their legs are twelve inches shorter on one side than the other in order for them to graze. ....

Good info there, Vin!

Yeah, the roads weren't slick from heavy snow!

So where did the "blinding snow storm" talk come from ??? That interests me. Could it simply be telling and retelling over 40 years with the snow getting worse each decade ?

About the Jimmy off in the ditch, it's never made sense to me that that road was taken to begin with except to use it as a place to ditch the Jimmy.

So if there were "identical tracks" at the end of Clyde Townsend Road, then we'd consider that another 4-wheel drive was involved, right? What do you think?

That sounds really logical to me Sorry I'm not better versed on the case.

[mbrn30000]

I will hop into this weather discussion. As someone who grew up in the midsouth, not in the mountains though, it's never about the snow, it's about the ice under the snow. I remember seeing a picture of the truck on the side of the road. Got the impression it was police photo taken that night...for the like of me, I cannot remember how much snow is visible. If someone has that pic or finds it, please post it again.

I think the fear in the high country in the south back then is more a worry of how bad is it going to get. So if it was getting messy you would want to be home. I will never forget the news clip of the state office workers in Nashville being sent home from the Capitol, one by one sliding down the hill out of the parking lot, slamming into each other like lemmings falling into the sea..one after another. Ice is Ice..I lived out west and could drive in that snow all day long and did. But in the south, it almost always starts as rain, then sleet, then heavy wet snow, then a freeze, then rain again the next day. Here is what I found..I am going to post some pics. Unfortunately, its not dead center on boone..but Hendersonville and the tri cities of east tn...but its all close. here are altitudes for cities in the area. Hendersonville 2200 feet; Boone 3,333 ft ; Bristol, TN 1,676 ft; Blowing Rock, NC where the rotary meeting was 4,000 ft. I remember comments that the winds gusted to 40 mph. not a blizzard but blowing snow is hard to see in. I also remember comments that it had reach 3 inches that afternoon which is nothing, unless it's a icy slush subject to freezing over. I am sure it was one messy night..and remember cecil was not able to drive up the drive and got stuck. so it was no spring shower...and remember cecil was a superhero. lol. Notice how much the temps dropped overnight on the 3rd into the 4th. it was fricken cold.

The newspaper cut outs are from Hendersonville paper. https://news.google....frontpage&hl=en

the warmer temps are from feb 3 the lower temps from feb 4.

Edited June 13, 2015 by mbrn30000

[Vincennes]

I will hop into this weather discussion. As someone who grew up in the midsouth, not in the mountains though, it's never about the snow, it's about the ice under the snow. I remember seeing a picture of the truck on the side of the road. Got the impression it was police photo taken that night...for the like of me, I cannot remember how much snow is visible. If someone has that pic or finds it, please post it again.

I think the fear in the high country in the south back then is more a worry of how bad is it going to get. So if it was getting messy you would want to be home. I will never forget the news clip of the state office workers in Nashville being sent home from the Capitol, one by one sliding down the hill out of the parking lot, slamming into each other like lemmings falling into the sea..one after another. Ice is Ice..I lived out west and could drive in that snow all day long and did. But in the south, it almost always starts as rain, then sleet, then heavy wet snow, then a freeze, then rain again the next day. Here is what I found..I am going to post some pics. Unfortunately, its not dead center on boone..but Hendersonville and the tri cities of east tn...but its all close. here are altitudes for cities in the area. Hendersonville 2200 feet; Boone 3,333 ft ; Bristol, TN 1,676 ft; Blowing Rock, NC where the rotary meeting was 4,000 ft. I remember comments that the winds gusted to 40 mph. not a blizzard but blowing snow is hard to see in. I also remember comments that it had reach 3 inches that afternoon which is nothing, unless it's a icy slush subject to freezing over. I am sure it was one messy night..and remember cecil was not able to drive up the drive and got stuck. so it was no spring shower...and remember cecil was a superhero. lol. Notice how much the temps dropped overnight on the 3rd into the 4th. it was fricken cold.

The newspaper cut outs are from Hendersonville paper. https://news.google....frontpage&hl=en

the warmer temps are from feb 3 the lower temps from feb 4.

Love the story about the employees smacking into one another ! That's what I'm saying ! The thing if that's the standard pattern, you'd think they would come to expect it but when I lived there they didn't seem to. I do remember my mother had made a trip down to see us by herself and drove home in one of the "snow storms." When she got home, she called us laughing about the experience and seeing cars (like the lemming employees off the road for really no reason except utter lack of experience.) And I do get the feeling that your perception of cold weather has been influenced a bit by your time in the Western states.

I'm left uncertain again from your almanac and newspaper clips on the weather. The first two from the almanac do show a drop from 2/3 to 2/4. However, the headline clips show really a moderate day on Thursday, 2/3 with possible "flurries." The second which is Friday, 2/4 talks about an extreme drop that night which would be at night but the day after the murders. The last two which are clips from the paper itself, the first is for Wednesday. It says at the bottom it's 2/3 but could those two clips possibly be from a different year since the day of the week doesn't match up ?

I don't disagree with you that there is a dip shown to 19 degrees, cold enough for ice and maybe that's what impacted them. It's just if the description of the "blinding snow storm" is wrong, what else is wrong about the description of the locations ? I hope that you can maybe find that picture of the car off in the snow. That would pretty much give a much clearer picture of what was there more than these weather reports give us.

Edited June 14, 2015 by Vincennes

[docyabut2]

Well I guess the picture of the Durhans house shows the weather conditions of that night.

[docyabut2]

From the article

The tracking dogs circled the 'gap,' a wide hollow behind the Durham home. They led their handlers to a dead end road where there were additional tire treads which were identical to those observed behind the GMC. The intruders apparently had arrived in the area in a car which they parked out of sight down the dead end road. They then made their way to the Durham home possibly traversing the pasture and crossing the fence."

From another article

The Jimmy was seen coming off of a residential area at ten-thirty," Whitman said. "They almost ran the driver off the road. This guy, he followed them on out to the main 105 where you would turn right, which he did, to Linville. He said the car turned left going back toward Boone, the Jimmy. It turned left like coming back toward Boone.

"He got home at 10:30, the guy who turned right. About the first road you could turn left on, the Jimmy was found abandoned, but it was in a ditch. This is a four-wheel drive. There was no indication that it slid into the ditch. It was just there with the lights on and the motor running."

The way I am understanding this, if this dead end road was directly behind the Durhams where the matching tracks were found , this road was the same road and first road you could turn left off of 105, where the Jimmy was found abandoned . It was not the dead end road of the Durhams street of Clyde town ship road that they had lived on.

So the way I see it, one went back to this car on the road behind the durhams house, another took the jimmy and they met up, staging the jimmy.

Edited June 14, 2015 by docyabut2

[Vincennes]

Well I guess the picture of the Durhans house shows the weather conditions of that night.

Well we don't actually have a way of knowing here when the picture was taken but to me it actually does match up with the almanac stats re. the weather, late Friday afternoon. Also the second 2/4 of those headline weather clips shows snow flurries arriving on Friday. Friday or Saturday would seem have been most probably when they were taking pictures outside. So I think that all fits together enough this is probably a good photo of how much snow there was.

Edited June 14, 2015 by Vincennes

[mbrn30000]

Love the story about the employees smacking into one another ! That's what I'm saying ! The thing if that's the standard pattern, you'd think they would come to expect it but when I lived there they didn't seem to. I do remember my mother had made a trip down to see us by herself and drove home in one of the "snow storms." When she got home, she called us laughing about the experience and seeing cars (like the lemming employees off the road for really no reason except utter lack of experience.) And I do get the feeling that your perception of cold weather has been influenced a bit by your time in the Western states.

I'm left uncertain again from your almanac and newspaper clips on the weather. The first two from the almanac do show a drop from 2/3 to 2/4. However, the headline clips show really a moderate day on Thursday, 2/3 with possible "flurries." The second which is Friday, 2/4 talks about an extreme drop that night which would be at night but the day after the murders. The last two which are clips from the paper itself, the first is for Wednesday. It says at the bottom it's 2/3 but could those two clips possibly be from a different year since the day of the week doesn't match up ?

I don't disagree with you that there is a dip shown to 19 degrees, cold enough for ice and maybe that's what impacted them. It's just if the description of the "blinding snow storm" is wrong, what else is wrong about the description of the locations ? I hope that you can maybe find that picture of the car off in the snow. That would pretty much give a much clearer picture of what was there more than these weather reports give us.

On that paper today's weather is in the top corner and yesterday's temp is in the lower corner. So the Thurs 2/3 paper has wednes hi's and low' and Friday's had thurs. Unfortunately the next edition in google for that paper is Monday and it has Sunday's hi's and lows. Its not perfect, but it does appear there was a real drop Thursday in the temps. The almanac does not give snow totals nor gusts, but sustain winds seem to be as high as 25 mph. I do think it was a lousy night for being about. If I was going to pillage, I would wait for a break. Something or someone made the crime urgent, so urgent it could not wait for better conditions.

[Regi]

Thinking back on these impressions I actually think that "wide hollow" could lay behind their house. It makes sense way back when those roads were created (before the houses) they would try to run them through the "hollows." My guess then, for what it's worth, is that is what they were talking about.

Oh, I see now, so the road runs through a hollow. Thanks, Vin!

[docyabut2]

Well we don't actually have a way of knowing here when the picture was taken but to me it actually does match up with the almanac stats re. the weather, late Friday afternoon. Also the second 2/4 of those headline weather clips shows snow flurries arriving on Friday. Friday or Saturday would seem have been most probably when they were taking pictures outside. So I think that all fits together enough this is probably a good photo of how much snow there was.

Seems about right , blowing wind and ice, 1 to 3 inches of snow.

[Vincennes]

From the article

The tracking dogs circled the 'gap,' a wide hollow behind the Durham home. They led their handlers to a dead end road where there were additional tire treads which were identical to those observed behind the GMC. The intruders apparently had arrived in the area in a car which they parked out of sight down the dead end road. They then made their way to the Durham home possibly traversing the pasture and crossing the fence."

From another article

The Jimmy was seen coming off of a residential area at ten-thirty," Whitman said. "They almost ran the driver off the road. This guy, he followed them on out to the main 105 where you would turn right, which he did, to Linville. He said the car turned left going back toward Boone, the Jimmy. It turned left like coming back toward Boone.

"He got home at 10:30, the guy who turned right. About the first road you could turn left on, the Jimmy was found abandoned, but it was in a ditch. This is a four-wheel drive. There was no indication that it slid into the ditch. It was just there with the lights on and the motor running."

The way I am understanding this, if this dead end road was directly behind the Durhams where the matching tracks were found , this road was the same road and first road you could turn left off of 105, where the Jimmy was found abandoned . It was not the dead end road of the Durhams street of Clyde town ship road that they had lived on.

So the way I see it, one went back to this car on the road behind the durhams house, another took the jimmy and they met up, staging the jimmy.

It's pretty hard to tell much about what any of those writers were trying to say. "He got home at 10:30, the guy who turned right." What the heck is he trying to say? I will say I think he should have gotten some type of an award for transposing sentences.

Although maybe we can take those offerings of the newsmen from those on the crime beat in Boone and say they tend to tell us that they think the perps drove the Jimmy away from the house around 10:30, then turned for some reason, drove back the direction of the house and abandoned the vehicle on a road some what behind the Durham's house where there might have been another car waiting to pick them up. Why the turn around back to the house ? Burglars? Here I'm going to drive out so that I can be seen, then "Naw this ain't going to work, I'm going back."

All we have to do is just accept this general picture of events and the primary question that pops up in my mind is WHY ? Why would they need to drive the D vehicle away from their home. Where it takes my mind is that they didn't want their own car seen or heard on arrival but they did want to be seen in trying to make a get away. So much so, they almost hit another car as they drive out of the road so that they can get his attention. That's why the turn around, they actually have their own car on a road close to where the D vehicle was later found abandoned.

They want to cover these move and make it look like it was done by burglars, so they throw in the "silver plate." Being from that area, they know that a car run right off the road in a snow / bad weather isn't going to be all that unusual in bad weather. So, its going to serve them two functions, using the D car a lazy way back to their car and it's going to throw the police in another direction. That gives all of this some logic.

Now I know I've mentioned this before and no one thought that it mattered much but there is that other thing that continues to bug my mind in this case. That is the "silver plate." I know, MB and Reg, you guys think that its a big nothing detail but it represents something else to me and but I've been trying to pin my mind down all last night about why it bothers me.

Like your photo of the car in the ditch, MB, I'd love to find a photo of that silver-plate as discovered inside the car. If it was what I think it was, however, I think I have determined why that it bothers me and why I think it says something. I'll refer to it both ways, as if it is just a plate or plated objects.

1) No simple burglar is going to kill three people and then seize on silver plate as his bounty to carry away. He/they are not going to leave jewelry/money in the house and grab an awkward plate to carry around in a stolen car.

2) No riding the rails nomad in the midst of a triple killing is even going to spot of that as being a valuable thing. Why did he happen to find one plate in the house that he is able to appraise as valuable ? Now if you move that up to something that would be noticed in a home or incorrectly perceived, something such as a silver service, it might have more obvious value, but it's even more awkward.

Now, I go here to just what Docy has just given us in the (sorry, have to say it) but those examples of the intelligence and aptitude of the small town news / report writers / sheriff that seem to have been involved.

To me what that silver represents is something that might just have had an attractive quality about it to mislead. "Silver," they took the silver !!! " ..... They tried to escape in the car and abandoned the valuable silver plate in the process."

Now, if I am the greedy son who is ready to off his parents for their money. I'm not going to put any of the real valuable things that I'm coveting in the hands of the police to be banged around as evidence, I'm going to use something that impresses them but that I don't give a hoot about; ergo, we have the silver-plate.

This and the fact the murders were so close up and personal, really say to me that this was a family job, done because of greed.

My theory here works either way if it was just one simple sterling plate or if it was actually what I think it was and that's probably a silver service. Now the reason I would so like to see the photo of it and define what it was goes back to my idea of the mindset capabilities of the sheriff, etc.because I don't think LE in Mayberry are going to come up with the term "silver-plate." What I'm thinking here is that is a term with a give-away in it. Did something happen like the Sheriff going to the son afterward and ask if the silver found in the back seat was his mother's and did the son/daughter-in-law in that second give himself away that he knew it really wasn't valuable by answering, "Yes, that's her silver-plate." That's why I want to see what it actually was because someone who didn't have VALUE on their mind at the time of the identification would have simply identified a silver service as simply that. They would not say, that's her "silver-plate."

Edited June 14, 2015 by Vincennes

[Vincennes]

On that paper today's weather is in the top corner and yesterday's temp is in the lower corner. So the Thurs 2/3 paper has wednes hi's and low' and Friday's had thurs. Unfortunately the next edition in google for that paper is Monday and it has Sunday's hi's and lows. Its not perfect, but it does appear there was a real drop Thursday in the temps. The almanac does not give snow totals nor gusts, but sustain winds seem to be as high as 25 mph. I do think it was a lousy night for being about. If I was going to pillage, I would wait for a break. Something or someone made the crime urgent, so urgent it could not wait for better conditions.

Gotcha I'm remembering too that weather predictions really weren't as good as they are today but I agree with you it shows a pretty good drop and some snow.

[docyabut2]

From the article

The tracking dogs circled the 'gap,' a wide hollow behind the Durham home. They led their handlers to a dead end road where there were additional tire treads which were identical to those observed behind the GMC. The intruders apparently had arrived in the area in a car which they parked out of sight down the dead end road. They then made their way to the Durham home possibly traversing the pasture and crossing the fence."

From another article

The Jimmy was seen coming off of a residential area at ten-thirty," Whitman said. "They almost ran the driver off the road. This guy, he followed them on out to the main 105 where you would turn right, which he did, to Linville. He said the car turned left going back toward Boone, the Jimmy. It turned left like coming back toward Boone.

"He got home at 10:30, the guy who turned right. About the first road you could turn left on, the Jimmy was found abandoned, but it was in a ditch. This is a four-wheel drive. There was no indication that it slid into the ditch. It was just there with the lights on and the motor running."

The way I am understanding this, if this dead end road was directly behind the Durhams where the matching tracks were found , this road was the same road and first road you could turn left off of 105, where the Jimmy was found abandoned . It was not the dead end road of the Durhams street of Clyde town ship road that they had lived on.

So the way I see it, one went back to this car on the road behind the durhams house, another took the jimmy and they met up, staging the jimmy.

To add who would want to have staged it all? Robbers would have taken the money, ect . The bag of sliver in the jimmy, why just leave it in the Jimmy to make it just appear to looked like it was a robbery. Constract killers would have just killed them.

[Vincennes]

Now that comes across to me as though there was a pasture and then a fence between the dead end road and the Durham home.

Oh, I see now, so the road runs through a hollow. Thanks, Vin!

I really do think so. Sometimes we don't actually realize how far back the roads were first blazed.

Now I'm so totally unfamiliar with the details of the descripts of the area, I'm out of no where with this but I think, that is the road through the "hollow" and what we see now as the Durham's back yard, along with the glimpses of their neighbors lots that we able to see, could have well been referred to as "pasture" land. That's what it had probably been in the not to far away past and that's what they still saw it as. I know not pasture by Texas standards..... LOL ..... Nor, Ohio, were you can look straight out your door and see your cows standing in the "pasture" five miles away. We are exactly that flat here ! But if you look at it through the Last of the Mohicans view, that would be a hollow and that would be what you would grab up as your "pasture." Seen that movie ? Remember the clearing where they were first attacked by the British ? There's your hollow and pasture behind the D house !

I know your shaking your head and thinking what she talking about, that's a movie filmed in preserved state parks but I'm saying it can still give you an idea of the area because through the 60s, 70s, that area outside of Mayberry was still pretty undeveloped. Little roads curving around and trees on both sides of you. What they did have going on right there was a great deal of furniture manufacturing. That area around Mt. Airy did have a lot of furniture companies and sales places. I think it's High Point, NC that was the place to start looking around for furniture deals from all the best manufacturers.

I know so little about this crime, I need to stop talking about it.

Edited June 14, 2015 by Vincennes