100th Episode with Rick Jackson

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[00:00:21] Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. .com slash income now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Welcome back to Crime Capsule. I'm your host, Benjamin Morris, and thanks as always for joining us.

[00:01:17] As we continue our 100th episode celebration, we knew we had to return to the scene of the crime of one of our favorite books of last year, none other than the quaint college town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, or the silent stones and bricks of the UNC

[00:01:34] campus, the lie, a far darker tale. Rick Jackson, author of Chapel Hill Murder and Mayhem, joins us today to catch us up on everything going on in the triangle, including his forthcoming book that draws on cases just down the road.

[00:01:53] We couldn't be happier to have him back on. Rick, welcome back to Crime Capsule. Hey, thanks for having me back. Man, it is our pleasure, you know, when we were sitting down brainstorming how to do our 100th episode anniversary celebration.

[00:02:12] I try to get those words in the right order. We just knew that we wanted to catch up with you and hear about everything that was going on in the world of Rick Jackson. How's it been? Hey, it's been good. You got the family stuff going on.

[00:02:26] We're hot and heavy getting through school right now, but we're getting to the summer and I've been trying to go around and do as much as I could with the book. I actually had a chance to go down and speak in New Bern in a library.

[00:02:39] That was pretty cool to like a true crime group down there, and that was really neat. A bunch of retired ladies, they really put me to the fire with a lot of questions about stuff. That was a lot of fun.

[00:02:52] But yeah, just been living life, working on my new book. Well, we're going to get into it. So the last time we sat down was about a year, year and a half ago, and Chapel Hill Murder and Mayhem had just come out.

[00:03:06] I think it had maybe been on the streets for like a week or two when we sat down. So how has the reception been? Yeah, I mean, so far, reception has been good. I have had good reviews on it.

[00:03:19] Again, that's kind of what I showcased when I went down to New Bern. That had come out pretty recently, and that's why they contacted me about that. It sparked a lot of interest again, because it's right up here in the triangle.

[00:03:31] A lot of, you know, when people think of that, they think of the university, which is true. You know, the town university pretty much going hand in hand. It's very interesting to people. But yeah, good reception so far. Yeah, been very pleased with it.

[00:03:45] You know, I loved reading that book. It is so much fun, partly because in many of the cases take us back to that era of prohibition and speakeasies and police chases. And, you know, when you put the word mayhem in the title, I think you

[00:04:05] might have been understating this situation just a little bit. Yeah, you're so right, because there are a couple of things I learned working with that book that I kind of kept carried on in my research

[00:04:19] I've done on my new book is that you really had a situation where the law enforcement has been trying to catch up. Now, like now we live in a society where like, you know, the police are like well funded and if you call 911, someone shows up or

[00:04:35] multiple people show up or if there's a traffic accident, a car is over with blue lights, you know, setting out cones. And it was just not always like that. And these were wild times and wild areas, especially when you're

[00:04:48] talking about prohibition and you're saying that this thing is illegal that everybody wants and a lot of people have. And these forces trying to police that and trying to chase that down. It just was like the wild west, really.

[00:05:03] And I think people back east don't really think of it like that. The gunfights and the gangsters and stuff. But it went on all around us. Well, and any student of North Carolina history, I mean, the first thing that you learn is that and history press has

[00:05:18] published books on this is that NASCAR was basically founded by bootleggers who'd souped up their cars to get away from the cops. I mean, that is just an iron clad fact of American history. Yeah, absolutely. That's absolutely true.

[00:05:33] And, you know, like I say that, I mean, it's part of the whole, you know, like you said, this whole big industry of NASCAR and muscle cars and things like that that we have nowadays. You was born right here in the state.

[00:05:46] No, I love it. I love it. Let me ask you this about Chapel Hill murder and mayhem. You know, one when a book appears and goes out into the world, one of the really lovely things about that moment and the months

[00:06:00] thereafter is that it goes off and has a life of its own. Right. I mean, you publish something in the book, starts to travel independently of you and people will pick it up and they'll kind of connect with different cases or stories that are in there.

[00:06:13] What has surprised you in terms of, say, audience feedback or developments on cases or any kind of ripple effect out there in the world since its publication a year ago? Yeah, I have gotten so many inquiries about the case of Sue

[00:06:36] Ellen Evans, which we talked about last time, which was a student in Carolina who in the Arboretum got attacked and fought, really was attempted rape and she fought back. And again, I would encourage everybody to go back and listen to it so they'll hear the whole story.

[00:06:53] But she literally died on the arms of a nun on the street of Chapel Hill. And just the feedback I've got from people that were just from the questions they were asking, it's almost like they were kind of trying to be like internet sleuths and

[00:07:08] trying to like try to solve this crime or try to figure out, like see what someone is missing because it's a cold case. And that happened a long time ago and people still are out there and they want to solve these things.

[00:07:20] And that's the most interesting thing to me is to see that people read this stuff and then go beyond what I looked up and learn more about it and ask questions about this. That's been really special to see that I've brought some attention to these cases.

[00:07:35] It's incredibly dramatic. I mean, that particular case just is so emotionally arresting. You know, I mean, it's not like a kind of love triangle gone bad, you know, which is funny to read about in a kind of, you know, distance sense.

[00:07:50] And you've got one of those in your book. We can kind of see a little bit of dark, dark humor there. You know, the Swellen case is it's very gripping and, you know, it's kind of hard not to really still desire

[00:08:07] justice for her because of just how really traumatic it was. Yeah. And I it's so funny too. And I'll mention this. I in my original manuscript that I turned into the history press, I had the story of Faith Hedgepeth, which is a very current case.

[00:08:26] But about that time they arrested someone and the publisher decided like, hey, like we need, you know, like we probably need to cut this out because this is like ongoing. It's not a cold case any longer. This is like an ongoing court case. Totally agree.

[00:08:40] I was like, OK, I got it. You're right. Like I'm not trying to get involved in this. You know, like we need to see how the story ends. But that's been over, I think, two years ago now, and they haven't brought that to trial. And it's very interesting.

[00:08:54] So I want to encourage the listeners to go out and do a little bit of research on that. But another sad case, another case kind of like Sue Ellen, where she's just a student at the school going about her

[00:09:05] business, you know, and just, you know, brutally taken out of this world. And everybody is kind of wanting and hoping for this conclusion, this this finality to why I guess it's really what everybody wants to know, right, is why do people do these things?

[00:09:21] Like what in the world? Like this is so outside of the human thought process. But hopefully we'll at some point in the future get get a closure on that one. But yeah, I would definitely encourage people to look at

[00:09:34] that since I wasn't able to include that in that book. Yeah. And say her name again one more time so folks can look it up. Faith Hedgepath. Faith Hedgepath. Hedgepath. Gotcha. Now apart from we'll move on to Durham here in just a second, but I am curious.

[00:09:49] I mean, you were born and raised Durham, but you said you you lived in Chapel Hill for, you know, good long time have you continued to where we all know that the triangle is a hotbed of all sorts of mischief. You know, I haven't even started talking about

[00:10:04] Raleigh, but, you know, in the in the months in the months since, you know, murder mayhem came out. Have you just out of curiosity, have you continued to collect other Chapel Hill cases for a possible sort of future follow up or what do you think?

[00:10:24] Well, I moved on to Durham, but it's funny because as soon as people talk to me and I tell them like that, I'm this kind of writer and I write about the stuff. I start getting like emails or texts with different cases,

[00:10:38] you know, like check this out, check this out. And I got to say, like, since we've talked, I've been working on my Durham murder mayhem. So I haven't collected any more of that stuff because I got to kind of get tunnel vision, you know, to concentrate on that.

[00:10:52] But that's not saying I may not look back around. And I see interesting stuff all the time that people send me. And sometimes it's like, you know, hey, I didn't even know about this. I missed this when I was researching things.

[00:11:04] Or sometimes there may be a reason that it wasn't. I'll say another there was another case in Chapel Hill that was really recent that was involving a child. And after I wrote it, I just kind of looked at it

[00:11:17] and I was like, man, I just I don't think that I don't even think I want to, you know, kind of put this out there. You know, it's just so brutal and bad. So sometimes it's things like that. Yeah.

[00:11:27] But yeah, I do have people that's that's what people want to do because people are interested, you know, people have, especially because I'm kind of done with the Durham book and I'm starting to talk about doing a Raleigh book.

[00:11:38] And I had a lady at a party the other day. She got my cell and she's texting me like three or four stories, you know, like, hey, like you check this out, check this out, check this out. You got to complete the trifecta.

[00:11:49] I mean, you've done Chapel Hill now. Durham's in the bag. You just got to do Raleigh. You don't have an excuse now. Yeah, that's right. And that was kind of my vision in the first because again, I'm a I'm a local boy.

[00:11:58] You know, I grew up in Durham, been all around, live in Wake Forest now, which is just right above Raleigh, live in Raleigh for years. Chapel Hill. So I've been all over and it's you know, I mean, it means something to me. The history means something to me.

[00:12:11] And like all these things are these are these are my people. Right. These are North Carolinians. These are people in the triangle here. This is this is all kind of a family thing here. But yeah, I agree. It's something that I kind of have to do now. Right.

[00:12:25] Yeah. Well, let's take that little drive down 15501, that little 20 minute at least used to be 20 minutes when I was driving 15501. I don't know what it is now, but let's let's head to Durham, you know, for for a few minutes and tell us about Durham murder

[00:12:41] and mayhem. What's what's the story here? Yeah. Durham or mayhem. It's going to be very interesting because I go back as far as I can. Trying to think Chapel Hill, I had some pretty early stories, but we kind of pick up there more in the 40s and 50s.

[00:13:00] We're going to go back earlier than that, because quite frankly, Durham has always been a rough place. This is kind of was a really just kind of a path crossing of railroads between like Hillsborough and Chapel Hill.

[00:13:16] At first and are, you know, Raleigh, I should say, and Hillsborough. And then, of course, Chapel Hill came off that near the Chow near the Hillsborough and then Durham popped up at this place called Pin Hook. They call it a pin hook.

[00:13:29] And even then, like I go back and I read books about the history of the formation of this, like we're talking in the early 1800s and they say, like, you know, this is Pin Hook is a gathering place for, you know, degenerates and alcoholics and things like that.

[00:13:43] Like it's the city of Durham. But again, this is home, right? So I understand in a way, but then away, I'm like, I feel like sign us up. Yeah, exactly. Let's go check it out. Yeah, I feel like I should be offended, but it's a good time.

[00:13:56] Right. It's the bull city. But so we go back a little bit farther there and we're going to kind of look at how it came about. And again, right almost immediately, we're going to see, kind of like I was saying before, the law enforcement just not

[00:14:10] just could not keep up with this. But because of that, we really in this book, that's different than the Chapel Hill book. We really are going to see some reoccurring characters throughout the decades. Like, for example, Cat Belvin was the sheriff in Durham for many, many years.

[00:14:29] But he's going to start off in these stories as a deputy, you know, work in some of these things. We're going to see some people that got in multiple gunfights. I mean, just literal gunfights like again,

[00:14:41] you would see on the movies and a lot of we've had a lot of law enforcement pass away in in Durham. And I try to honor them and mention them in the book. One thing specifically I can definitely mention is I'm going to talk about the Hall brothers.

[00:15:00] The Hall brothers were two brothers that were deputies. One got killed in a shootout with a moonshiner in 1929 and his brother took his spot because I guess they only had a few spots to police this whole county. And his brother got shot and killed in 1939, ten years later.

[00:15:21] So like I say, this will have more reoccurring characters throughout that are tying it together. Well, keep that that choke on your shotgun set nice and wide there. And tell us, I mean, what other kind of cases do you see in this area?

[00:15:35] We see that, of course, Durham has its long tobacco history. There's a lot of money bound up in tobacco. Right. We know that a little more of an industrial town than some of the others, you know, in the triangle for sure.

[00:15:48] So you get some sectors which do attract those kind of rough rough and ready characters, don't you? Yeah, absolutely. And we're going to see because of that, that industry and because of the location, we're going to see, you know, a bank robbery.

[00:16:01] We're going to see a courier robbery. This is all like Great Depression times when, you know, when Dillinger and people are robbing stuff in the Midwest. This is happening here also. It's just not getting the news press or they're not having like that one

[00:16:17] antihero, if you will, that that's making the news. But that kind of stuff's happening here. Of course, the bootlegging is happening here. And the other part of that is the with the illegal alcohol. You also have to look at. The bootlegging is fun.

[00:16:34] You know, we're talking about like the liquor kingpins and stuff that find themselves in trouble in the book. But also we look at the downside, the other side of that, of the people that are consuming this product. And, you know, we see a lot of sad stories

[00:16:48] and just kind of some senseless murders that took place by people that were just, you know, either robbing someone for a small amount to get to these things or had too much to drink. You know, and so we're going to kind of see that side.

[00:17:02] But that's going to be the theme is just this this kind of underbelly, if you will, of of lawlessness that's going on in the city. Well, again, while it's growing, while at the same time you have like Trinity University turned into Duke University,

[00:17:17] you have these great, wonderful hospitals coming up and you have the research on the park. So you have this very much. There's a duality about Durham for sure. There really is. There really is.

[00:17:29] And it was even still present in many ways, you know, when I was an undergraduate there. You know, we talked about town and gown all the time and the bubble and, you know, that kind of stuff. And downtown had not been revitalized when I was an undergrad.

[00:17:42] We were kind of, you know, folks would say, well, don't go past stick to Night Street, you know, stick to Night Street, that kind of thing. And, you know, my brother worked downtown at this great old establishment called Fishmongers, which I know you remember very well.

[00:17:58] And that was our hangout. You know, we go and eat raw oysters and drink a pint of Guinness and just kind of hang out on Friday afternoons, you know, and downtown was fine. But it was funny because we were kind of all,

[00:18:10] oh, you better not go downtown, you know, like. And it's just sort of like, guys, this year, you're overplaying your hand a little bit here. So, you know, it is it did have the reputation, but it has changed enormously in the last 20 years, hasn't it?

[00:18:25] Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Durham is a beautiful city, and I definitely don't want to, you know, put out a book and have people think that it's something that's not. It has grown by leaps and bounds, you know, like you.

[00:18:37] Like I remember back in the day when you really couldn't. You really didn't want to go downtown, you know, to certain places. But now downtown is just absolutely beautiful. And they have this beautiful deep pack and the they turn the league at Meyers buildings and these nice stores

[00:18:51] and restaurants, and they have the Durham Bulls down there. So, you know, it's definitely definitely my home and always will be. But and on top of that, just a rich, beautiful history, you know. But again, a history with war. It's all history has war, right?

[00:19:06] Like just people like me are the guys that kind of bring that up and stuff we don't want to talk about. There you go. We'll bring them and give us as much as you can. Well, let me ask you two quick questions about that.

[00:19:15] Number one, you spoke of the university. And as I recall, my alumni magazine had a big old, you know, 100 on the front cover recently. So I guess they have just celebrated their centenary, you know, as as Duke University or whatever.

[00:19:32] But the question I have for you is how much in Durham murder and mayhem does the does the campus figure in? Of course, with your Chapel Hill book, you had a couple of campus murders or campus incidents, you know, not just murders.

[00:19:46] So what do you what do you get in Durham there? Does that show up in the book? I don't have anything specifically on Duke's campus. I have stuff all around it. Have some stuff with a professor over there by behind where the VA is today.

[00:20:03] Kind of a murder suicide situation going on there. But I don't have as many campus murders or situations I did in Chapel Hill. But again, that's kind of because Chapel Hill is the university and the university is Chapel Hill. So you really Durham is a lot bigger

[00:20:18] than Chapel Hill, right? Like it's actually considerably bigger, even though it's right there together. There's this rivalry. But yeah, I didn't have anything specifically on like this happened to a Duke student or that happened to a Duke student. I toyed with covering the whole Duke-LaCrosse case,

[00:20:36] but that has kind of been done over and over, you know, and I didn't want to I wanted to I'd rather spend my time digging up something no one's heard about than focus on that. But there had there definitely have been things

[00:20:48] that had been on the Durham campus, for sure. And I did also there was a murder, too. I don't remember the gentleman's name, and I'm so sorry that I don't. I could find my book, but in the in my Chapel Hill book, the murder,

[00:21:03] there was a murder where a student was murdered there, but also there was a Duke student that had been murdered by the same people. And I'm totally drawing a blank on the names on the situation. But but of course, I don't want to revisit that.

[00:21:19] All right. It'll come to you and we'll we'll read it in the book, you know, for sure. Let me ask you this, Rick. What is the most recent case? How far in time does the Durham book come up, you know, to the present day?

[00:21:36] Last time we sat down, of course, we we chewed the fat about the old Michael Peterson staircase trial and all that. But, you know, are you looking at very recent cases in this or are you kind of keeping your keeping your focus a little bit more restrained?

[00:21:50] I've been further back in this one. I do go up through the 90s to a case that involves a guy named Sean Owens, who was kind of a very similar situation to the Matthew Shepherd, where he's the guy was a homosexual male and,

[00:22:07] you know, was kind of targeted for that. And this happened about the same time as Matthew Shepherd. But everybody knows the Matthew Shepherd story. But they don't really know Sean Owens. And this happened about the same time. So I'll talk about that.

[00:22:19] I do cover because I did a North Carolina murder in Mayhem and I do cover the Michael Peterson in there. So but yes, we're going to go through the 90s. There should be here at the end of story 2013 of a 19 year old that was killed.

[00:22:37] So that's probably how we're going to end it. But we're really going to stay further back in this one as much as I could because I like to just tell that history of it to to just kind of bring out some where it started, where it all started.

[00:22:51] Well, if it's if you're still looking at doing any other cases, I'll give you two little tips and I'm sure you're already aware of them. But, you know, just from the the campus perspective, what's fun? Number one, we have these tunnels on campus, right?

[00:23:04] And there's there's a sort of networked series of interlocking tunnels that run underneath the dormitories, particularly on East Campus. I think is where most of them are. And it used to be you could actually get access to them because the maintenance hatches were just kind of left unlocked.

[00:23:25] And I'm thinking my brother was in Giles dorm and I was, you know, we would go and kind of check out what was in these. You know, they were there. You could get into them, right? And the hatch we always used was behind Giles.

[00:23:35] But I think they've been more or less sealed off. And and yet there was always rumor, Rick. I mean, there was always kind of, you know, what really goes on in these? What are they really for? When were they built and why?

[00:23:48] You know, they say the word maintenance, but that could mean anything. You know, like, what's the story here? So the tunnels, the tunnels are ripe for for investigation at some point in the future. Yeah, I'll for sure look into that.

[00:24:01] Yeah, like so my my parents both worked at the North Carolina School of Science and Math, which used to be the Watts Hospital. And I know they had tunnels under there and they were built for security for the nurses, you know, to kind of transport themselves at night.

[00:24:14] Kind of like you said that they would call it maintenance. They're like maintenance tunnels. But that's not really what they were for, right? Like they were they were there to protect people. Yeah, that's definitely worth looking into. It's a fun one. It's a fun one.

[00:24:26] Of course, the other famous kind of weird thing, which would be up your street, is that for years, I don't know if it's still active or not, but it would be fun to look into. For years, there was a parapsychology institute on

[00:24:40] East Campus, you know, very famous kind of ESP researchers and, you know, that kind of stuff. Yeah, the Ryan Institution. That's the one. That's the one. Thank you for yeah, you know, you never know what's going to happen over there.

[00:24:53] Cups flying off the wall and that kind of thing. Yeah, when I was a kid, my buddy, my best friend's name was Gabriel and his mom was like a secretary of the Ryan Institute. I thought that was so cool. But by the time I got old enough,

[00:25:06] it had it's funny because it shut down as a part of Duke, but it's actually still there. What's it actually still in Durham, but they kind of operate independently. But yeah, they were for a time there, Duke had this parapsychology department, you know,

[00:25:18] kind of like you see on Ghostbusters where the university is putting money in there and they were doing like the ESP records and stuff. So that's very cool. I've always wanted to get out there and maybe I'll try to creep out there one day

[00:25:30] and see if they'll let me participate in something. That's fruit ripe, ripe for the plucking for sure. Well, all this sounds just amazing, Rick. It sounds like you got a real crackerjack of a book in store here. You know, a lot of fun cases,

[00:25:46] a lot of sad cases, but interesting. And as you say, warts and all, right? We got to do it warts and all. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree because that's how it is. You know, that's how history is. Absolutely. So when, what stage is manuscript in

[00:25:59] and when do you think we might get a chance to take a look at it? Yeah, so the publisher has the contractually, it's gonna be to the publisher at mid July. So it's gonna be with them then. And of course, then there's that process

[00:26:11] of the editing and putting everything together. So I don't have a firm data wanting to come out at this point, but generally they move pretty fast once we get it. You know, they have their professional editors and they'll send it back to me

[00:26:23] and they all sign off on everything. And, but yeah, I don't have, and of course I could shoot you an email when I get a firm date on that. But yeah, I don't have a firm date on when it's coming out,

[00:26:34] but it is gonna be to the editor at mid July. So it'll be coming soon. That sounds great. Well, I'll tell you this. We want to be right at the top of your list for when this sucker appears because we cannot wait to read it

[00:26:47] and to learn about the sorted past of the bull city. And, you know, it sounds like just like a lot of fun. So thank you so much for taking some time for us. Tell me this Rick, if folks want to look up

[00:27:02] any of your previous titles that are out there, what's the best way for them to find you? Of course all my books are on Amazon. I have a website, rickjaxonauthor.com that you can reach me at and you can also email me through that

[00:27:17] that I can talk to people about the books. I get a lot of feedback through there. Sounds great. Anybody out there has any cases for this third Raleigh book? Yeah, that's where they're gonna send them in, right? That's right. I'd love to see them do some research.

[00:27:32] Good deal. Good deal. Well, Rick, thank you so much. It's been great to catch up with you and congratulations on the next one. We're excited to see it. All right. Thank you guys for having me on. I hope to be on soon with you again

[00:27:43] and talking about Durham, Berger, Mayhem. We'll do it. Appreciate you. Talk to you soon. Thank you. Thanks for listening. Our guest has been Rick Jackson, author of Chapel Hill Murder and Mayhem published by the History Press. To order a copy of the book, visit your local independent bookstore

[00:27:59] or visit arcadiapublishing.com. Join us next week as we continue our 100th episode anniversary celebration with crime capsule legend, Rita Shuler. See you then. One of Scotland's most notorious unsolved murders. To think that someone could turn a cheese wire into a grot and take someone's life.

[00:28:24] The level of violence, the uncertainty and the randomness to frighten people. She always thought the killer was going to come back after her. Society needs to find that killer. Who is the cheese wire killer? Listen to The Fool series now wherever you get your podcasts.