A Charlotte Murder

Hi, I'm Holly. And I'm Hailey. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries, Tales from Appalachia. And we're live, we're back.

Hello. And hoping for the best. So we're going to be back. Every week.

We are just hoping for a little bit better before, but we can't promise you that. Things are going downhill. Well, they tend to. They tend to.

My son was acting out tonight. I was telling Hailey every time she comes over, he acts out. He's like wild and crazy and like, you know, just like wanting attention and all the things. And we surmise because Hailey's the one who's going to be picking him up when he's drunk and can't call mom.

Yeah, I'm going to be well, I am auntie Hailey and I think I'm just going to be the I've resigned myself to being that like cool aunt. Yeah. That kind of lets you get away with a little bit more than mom, but also range you in a little bit. We'll come pick you up when you're drunk.

Yeah. Take you back to my house. Deal with it. Let you puke.

Call mom. Let her know you're good. Give her the night off. So that she's a murder you the next day and that kind of thing.

I'm just kind of a strength sly. Yeah. Yeah. Raising one and like parenting it.

No, but you know I can deal with the drunk. Because at one point, Hailey said, well, I've got a P. So I'm leaving. We were in his room and he closed the door on us.

He was like, no, you're going to stay in my room and watch me jump off this bed. I'm like, I'm peeing my hands off to go. Hailey's like, no. And she was like, okay, time's up.

So good night. Fist bump. He was like, yeah. And he was like, yeah.

And I was like, and I'm gone. And I'm gone. Out of here. That was really funny.

But I did tell her that I was cleaning tonight and he said, why are you cleaning? Are we having company? He's like, um, why do you think that? And he was like, cause you're cleaning.

And I was like, look son, I clean other type. He should know this by now about me. Oh, yes, it just confirms. Yes.

We watched lots of monster truck videos. Yes. Yes. Yes.

I got to be the shark monster truck on the little ramp thing. The race track. Yes. Yes.

Yes. His new thing is these monster trucks, which I, I'm going to be honest. It's not a thing going mud and it's not really my thing. Like we live in the burbs.

Yeah. It's not really my thing, but I'm going to support this because my son likes it. So if in the future he wants a big old honkin monster truck, I probably won't be like, there's my son. Right.

And I don't know. I never, my eyes a little bit kind of disowned him momentarily, but then again, who knows? His teacher did tell me at school. So he's in preschool and my teacher did, his teacher did tell me that he's very smart.

She said he was talking about outriggers. Yeah. She was like, she was like, what's an outrigger? And I was like, oh, it helps keep stabilization to like a truck crane or something that's doing like heavy work.

And she was like, that makes sense. So it doesn't move. And I was like, right. She's like, what the heck?

She's like, I was smart. Well, we were talking about, I don't even know what diesel engine mechanics or something like that one day and he's just like rattling off this stuff. Dude. And I don't know what he's talking about.

It's like combustible engines or something. Yeah. And I'm like, does that explode? He's like, no, it doesn't.

Yeah. He talks about turbine engines and he talks about diesels versus, he was two years old and he was like, well, that's a diesel. And I was like, how do you know it's a diesel? And he was like, listen to the sound of it.

He was like, not all diesels are loud. And I was like, who are you? I know. He's clearly not me.

Identifying like the different pieces of farm equipment at where I live. And it's like, I just call everything a tractor. And he's like, that is a backhoe. That is a skid steer.

That is a this. I'm like, what? I know I mistaked one time. A forklift for a skid steer.

And he, I'm working a stick. He about shot my life. I'm not going to lie. He was like, he looked at me appalled and he said, Mom, you know, he was like, that is a skid steer.

A forklift is totally different. And I was like, yeah, I mean, obviously I knew that anyway. I got it. Let's talk about some murder.

Yeah, because I'm about as mechanical knowledge. I don't have any. I can work on a mechanical pencil. That's about it.

And then there's questionable. So, all right. So this time we're going to Charlotte. Yes.

So, huge shout out. We have quite a few listeners from Charlotte. You know what? It's time to move westward.

Yes. Eastward. Eastward. That's right.

We are westward. Go ahead, bless it. It's fine. So, huge shout out and credit to Symphony Weber from Access Charlotte for details in the story along with a 2013 blog that answered questions by local charlatans.

Sure. Here's the thing. I don't think it's charlatans because a charlatan is somebody who is like a con artist, someone like a snake oil salesman, you know, they used to sell you elixirs. Yeah.

But they were charlatans. Like it didn't fix your ails. So that's a good question. Folks from Charlotte, what do you call it?

What do you call it? What do you call yourself? So it's a group. Yeah, I don't know.

You said charlatanians? I did say charlatanians. That sounds nice. I feel like that's very incorrect.

Charlatans. Yeah. No, that's a lot of charlatans. So, charlatans.

Weird. Okay. So, obviously we're starting our story in Charlotte, North Carolina. Nice.

And it's there that we met John Starnes and his wife Annie. John and Annie have been married close to 50 years and originally hailed from Rutherford. Oh, okay. We're just about 90 minutes west of Charlotte.

Yeah. We're just about 99. So we are going to go back a little bit for the story. Okay.

By 1949, the couple left Rutherford for Charlotte where they would run their restaurant with plans to retire soon. So they had been in the restaurant business and they were scaling back of it. So they were letting their employees take more of the reins of the restaurant, but they were still frequent flyers there. Like they were there, green guests and really nice.

The local eatery was called the pilot and it sat on highway 74 across from the old state highway patrol barracks. Okay. And due to its location and the friendly repartee, the restaurant was a very popular hangout for locals and travelers alike. So one of your pilot, I think the gas station.

I do too. Like pilot gas stations. You too. When you're going to look like a long road trip, what should go to gas station on road trip gas station?

So I love good QT. I do have a QT. And our former boss loves sheets. Sheets is a good one.

And I would just always say, oh, sheets. I know. It doesn't get old. I'm sure it gets old with her, but every time she goes, she takes a picture and I write, oh, sheets.

Yeah. I know. I do too like pilots. I do too.

I like a pilot. I like a pilot. Or a love. Yeah.

Good ones. Yeah. Because the thing about it is they have clean bathrooms. Yeah.

For the most part, they're pretty clean bathrooms. I went to a bookies. I never paid. I went to one and I was, if you are like me and don't do well in crowds of largely, like a lot of people, it was a lot.

I was very overwhelmed because it's huge. But oh my God, the bathrooms. Nice. They're so nice.

Okay. Where's the local bookies? There's no other severe bowl. Really?

It's open. And then there was one on the way to, I was going to hold me each. Okay. And it was on the way.

And then they were in Kentucky and they tend to be more of that way. Yeah. And then they're like, Texas is where they started. Yeah.

So, yeah. I'm bringing part of the, bring Bucky's to Western North Carolina. That'd be great. That'd be awesome.

So with business booming, John and Annie, now in their early 70s, I know, and still going. They're still going. They're just a newly constructed home in around 1952. The home was located at 3651 Mulberry Church Road.

So cute. No. And it was a nice working class neighborhood. Like the neighborhood really safe.

John and Annie were well known in their small community and highly respected. They had regular customers whom they would shoot the breeze with and everyone loved them. This included fellow restaurant owner and friend, Charles B. Wright.

Nice. And while Charles himself owned a local restaurant, there wasn't any sense of competition between the two of them. It was more camaraderie. Like, hey, you know, we're in this together.

How are you? How did you sell a day? You know, so no, like, stealing patrons or anything like that. Right.

You know, Charles was actually a trusted friend that had visited their home any time. So they were friends on a personal level, because of business. On May 19th, 1963, Charles noticed that John and Annie hadn't been seen in a few days. This was very odd for them as they were pretty much social butterflies in the community.

So first, Charles tried calling them on the phone, but no one answered. He was like, hmm, Charles thought, okay, maybe they're resting. He decided to go to their house thinking that maybe they were home sick with a flu or something. He thought, you know, perhaps I can check in, see if they need anything, you know, bring you some soup, tissues, pepto-pismol.

One of those things, maybe it's, you know, you're ill and it's, you know, they were older. So maybe they're kind of weak, you know, maybe I'll go and help. So he went to their house, knocked on the door repeatedly, but no one answered. I mean, at this one, he was banging really hard.

They can't hear me. He kind of looked in the windows and he found this so strange because he thought, well, even if they're sick, someone would have come to the door or I would have heard someone saying, go away. Yeah. So Charles questioned if maybe they couldn't answer the door.

So maybe they need help. Charles just got that feeling that something wasn't right. So he went next door to the neighbors and asked to use their telephone and call the police. So remember, it's 1963, they don't have cell phones.

So he thought, you know, maybe the police could come by and just do like a welfare check on them. When the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police department arrived at the home, they too, knocked loudly on the door. They had a response. They made their way into the home.

They searched throughout the house, but the couple was nowhere to be found. That was until they made it to the primary bedroom. As the police opened the door, they were faced with a grisly sight. John and Annie had been discovered inside their bedroom covered in blood.

They had been beaten and stabbed multiple times in the back and the head. The entire room was covered in blood and there was spatter that rang down from the walls, the ceiling and the door frame. So based on the defensive wounds on the couple's hands and the patterns of blood spatter, it was apparent that the struggle had been a very violent one. Investigators believe that the attack most likely occurred late in the evening on May 17th.

It was believed to happen around dark due to the fact that the exterior light, like a porch light, was on. And police believe that John had maybe heard something outside, flipped on the porch light, and then once he opened the door to kind of see, hey, what the heck's going on, he encountered a burglar, possibly like a drifter or someone that he did not know. See, when I turn on my porch light and open the door at night, I usually come to face a raccoon. Exactly.

Yeah. And maybe that's what he was thinking. I'm like, I'm going through my trash. What are we doing?

My raccoon is somehow, I mean, I know that they're agile. This thing is insane because I have bird feeders in my yard. And like they're the pole, like it's a pole dancing raccoon because it's actually shimmy on up there somehow. I don't know how it does.

I mean, I throw a dollar out for him. I mean, at this point, I'm like, I mean, you're putting in that work then you probably should. You probably should. But a dollar and a song.

Yeah. Yeah. So unlike Haley, this was not a raccoon, but they did believe that it was someone not known to him, but because there was no forced entry, it was believed that so police theorized that the intruder may have forced John back into the house, perhaps at knife point, you know, demanding money or like something of value. And they thought that John maybe struggled with the perpetrator or perpetrators, depending fighting for his life and the life of his wife, just based on the defensive wounds.

Was there blood in the living room? No. So they're thinking maybe that he like made them go in the bedroom and maybe that's where his wife was because it was late. So maybe he got up from bed, you know, like his pajamas and his wife just stayed in bed and he went to check on what the noise was probably thinking again, like, oh, my goodness.

And maybe they didn't think anybody was home. Right. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So investigators spoke with locals in the area who were all very friendly with a couple and there was no one who would have wanted to do them harm. I mean, everybody they talked to really liked them.

So this also led to the burglar, you know, drifter theory that they had going on. And with so little to go on and, you know, really no witnesses or anything else, the case very quickly went cold. Okay. So now for a second, I'm going to leave the story right where it is.

Okay. And I'm going to take you to Richmond, Virginia. Oh, okay. We're going to a little trippy.

Sure. Yeah. Okay. Two elderly women were killed after someone broke into the home that they shared.

I hate it when it's the elderly. I know you do. And remember it's 63. So elderly is probably 70 still.

I know. It's not cool. No, it's bad times. You definitely.

So similarly to the stars, the two women were brutally murdered after being stabbed in the back and the head multiple times with an object that was approximately about an inch in width, which was actually the same thing that happened to the stars. And not just that. And beaten. Hmm.

Maybe like a butcher knife. Maybe a kitchen knife. Maybe a kitchen knife. Maybe box cutter.

I don't know. And it is just a long. It's like a whip with whip. That's what I was doing.

No, we're talking about an inch in whip. That is probably a kitchen knife. She's measuring with her fingers or a, oh my kitchen knife. Or a long skinny kitchen knife.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Something sharp, I'm sure.

The motive was robbery as items of value were missing from the house. Police and rich men spoke with friends and neighbors of the two women and like the star and says the two women were well liked in the community and had no known enemies. Like the star in this case, this too went cold. It's so frustrating.

Have you made a connection yet? We'll get there. Okay. So that was until November of 1963.

So this puts us about six months after the murders. A young drifter. A drifter. A drifter.

Always a drifter. By the name of Luther Durham Jr. was arrested and charged with breaking and entering grand larceny, statutory burglary and first degree homicide related to the Richmond case. It's of importance to note here that Luther was from Guilford County, North Carolina, which is a horribly far from Georgia.

No, I don't trust anybody named Luther. No, I always think like a Lex Luthor. Yeah. You know, like you can't trust them.

I don't like that. I don't either. I'm sorry if you're, I mean, yeah, somebody had to make that choice twice. Right.

No one said the first time this was horrible. It's like my dad's a junior and nobody said the first time wasn't horrible because it was. Yeah. Don't worry.

You know, it didn't get passed off. Which is good. Yeah. My brother's like not the third or anything like that.

He has a completely different name, which is great. Anyway, so an arrest, the arrest received notoriety and the Charlotte Police Department heard about it and were intrigued with the parallels between their case and the case in Richmond. So they reached out to the Richmond PD and shared their case info and asked, Hey, can we come talk to Luther? We've got some questions.

Yeah. Richmond police were intrigued as well and said, Come on. Why not? That's the more America.

Exactly. So officers were dispatched from North Carolina to Virginia to interview Luther and by the time Charlotte police arrived to interview him, Luther and his trial for murdering the two elderly women had yet to come up. He was waiting. So he was in jail.

Luther told investigators from North Carolina that he may indeed have information to share with them, but it really depended on the outcome of this trial in Virginia. He asserted that if he were to be convicted, he had nothing to tell them. However, if he had been acquitted in Virginia, he may have something to share and was willing to return to North Carolina and bargain what he knew about the deaths of Mr. and Mrs.

Stearns. So basically he's saying, if I get off in Virginia, I don't mind coming back to good old NC and telling you, but only if I get a plea deal. I mean, at that point, what do they do? What do you even do with that?

So do they put on the table? Like, okay, so depending on this, like, yes, then we'll take you back to North Carolina and then we'll give you this plea deal. Like, I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't want you to have that. That's a tricky one. Isn't it?

Oh, what do we do? We do have a lot of ones and just take them anyway. Once Virginia gets down with them. Right.

Well, it took some time before Luther actually went to trial due to continuances. The trial was held in the late fall of 1965. This is two years after the murders. So after both sides were heard by the jury, they came back with a verdict on December 8th, 1965.

The jury found Luther guilty on all counts, including two counts of first degree murder. He was sentenced to life plus 14 years. So kind of put the nail in the coffin for Charlotte Pee-Dee. Right.

They're kind of like, oh, I don't know what we can do with that. Nothing. And they were present at the trial and they hear the verdict and it's like, great. They attempt to try and talk with him again, but no, he didn't have any loose lip.

He had nothing for them and basically let them know that. So they weren't able to find out any information and alas, not find out what happened to the stars. So the case once again grew colder than ice. And as the years passed by, as they would, changeovers in the police happened and then the star in case really, really was nearly forgotten.

I mean, it was kind of shelved and they had other fish to fry and unfortunately that happens so much in our justice system. It does. And especially in a city like Charlotte where it's constantly expanding and getting bigger and with that, you know, comes more crime and more things and all the more people you get and that's just, yeah. So many things.

Exactly. So many things stacked against you. There really is. However, in 2002, so we were talking 39 years later, a local paper produced a series of articles on unsolved murders, one of which they talked about was the star in case.

And after it got a little publicity, the police were encouraged to reopen it with a team of investigators to bring some fresh eyes to this good old cold case. And piece by piece, they went over all the information that had been collected and stored for decades. So I want to throw out Bravo to the police in 1963 for being so thorough about it that they still had evidence because how many times have you heard like, we went to go find the evidence and it was gone? Yeah, like a loss of move or destroyed or fire back the PD in, you know, 68.

In the records room. Yeah. Or somebody was over it and took it and it's just gone. Or, you know, somebody, you know, took it home.

Yeah. Just to like a lot, you know, you're looking at it. And an old detective or whatever had some of like had a random case file and took it home. And you know, they retired another dead.

Yeah. And I was worried about it. Yeah. All the things.

Yeah. Exactly. So they really wanted to talk with Luther and as it turns out, he was still alive and incarcerated in Virginia. Again, this is 39 years after the crime.

So they called the prison and they're going to hold. Luther said, yeah, come on, y'all. I'll talk to you. So he's willing to talk with them.

But to me, this feels a lot like either a plot for attention or like trying to jerk their Jane a little bit. Kind of like, well, what's in it for me? Right. Or can you extradite me or something to that?

Like, it just feels icky to me. Right. So Luther sat down with him for an interview and he started to recall a late night, many years ago in 1963 when he, his girlfriend, Alice Brits, her sister, Myrtle, there's a name and their stepfather, George Monroe, had been traveling together from Virginia to the Carolinas. They found themselves in need of money after they ran into some car trouble.

So it was like, we can't really fix the car. But to me, it must have been something that was still like drivable, but literally like need to fix. Maybe like the engine was overheating or something. So I thought, yeah.

Right. So Luther explained that his girlfriend, Stephad George, was a friendly acquaintance of a star. And so remember I told you at the beginning that not only locals, but travelers would come into the pilot and chit chat and that kind of thing. So clearly he had been there before and maybe chit chat.

So he says, you know, maybe we can go to their house. I guess, you know, where they lived, which seems kind of odd to me. And you know, maybe Mr. Starne's going to help us get some cash.

Like maybe, you know, hey, I'm a friend. Like, maybe he'll loan me a couple bucks, you know, whatever. Yeah. Again, yeah, this was right.

I would never go up to somebody that I've met a few times and be like, so you got 20 bucks? Yeah. I just, but it was weird. Like right.

So the motive seems odd. Yeah. Yeah. So according to Luther, he dropped George and his two daughters off to talk with the stars while he went to a nearby service station to see if he could find someone that might be able to fix his car.

He claims that he saw Mr. Starne's turn on the porch light, open the door and welcome George and the girls inside. At that point, Luther was like, okay, they're inside. So he drives off towards the service station.

A couple of weird things here that don't add up for me. Just stop this and say number one, why would you go get your car fixed in the middle of the night? Right. The gas station may have been open, but no mechanic is going to be there.

It's not like a 24 seven mechanic service. Oh, please welcome. I'm the 60s. Exactly.

Even now that doesn't exist. So that doesn't make sense. And isn't it convenient that he dropped them off, but he wasn't present at the location. And someone who has no acquaintance of yours who shows up on your door, even in the 60s, it kind of thing is weird in the middle of the night.

In the middle of the night. Yeah. And you would welcome them in, even in the 60s. That's weird.

That's a very weird thing. Now, I know they were friendly and they were social butterflies, but that just seems implausible to me. So after a span of time, Luther returns to the star's home to pick up George and the girls. Again, if your car is messed up, was it?

See, I don't know the in-between details. So did you go to the mechanic shop, realize, oh crap, it's not open. What was I thinking? Did you maybe fill gas and then come back?

I don't know what will happen in between. So he says he returns to go pick up George and the girls. He enters the home and finds John and Annie Starns lying on the floor in a pool of blood dead from stab wounds in a beating. Oh.

Horrified by the scene, he thought it best to get his friends as far away from the scene of the crime as possible. So they plan to drive back to Virginia and get across state lines as soon as the car was repaired. Again. Okay.

So if you have committed a crime and you want to get the hell out of dodge, you're going to just stop so often and like, you know, cool down the engine or something. Like you wouldn't just go to the local service station after her horrific murder as a drifter in town, you know, which these people would probably have blood on their clothes or, you know, based on the violence they could have been harmed themselves. Like they may have cuts or something. So this doesn't make sense in so many ways.

All right. So do keep in mind that when Luther was interviewed in 2002, he was the only one of those four individuals who was still alive. So no else who was involved in the story was allowed to tell their side. Right.

Because they're dead. Is that convenient? Convenient. I don't like it.

I don't either. I say liar, liar, hands on fire. Probably. It was definitely so you have to wonder.

Did John Sarns refuse the trio money and they beat and stabbed him and his wife out of a fit of anger? Um, did they just go back to Virginia and live their lives like nothing ever happened? And something to know here is that George, Alice and Myrtle were never arrested with any other crimes, including petty ones, like petty robbery and nor had they been in the past. So committing a murder is so out of character for someone who's never done anything.

Right. Then a horrific one and a horrific one for money to steal with the intention of stealing. Right. Because even the story of, hey, he'll know me, he'll give me money to fix my car is ridiculous.

And to kill someone for the right. That's like, that's weird. And to have a knife on you. Right.

Like if you were gonna go ask your friend for money, why would you have a knife? Right. Unless the intention was robbery. Right.

So it goes back to that. So yeah, these folks didn't have any criminal history prior to that nor after that. So do we know they were even there? I don't know.

All right. I mean, you got to think a lot of the witnesses who may or may not have seen them are probably dead at this point. So sadly, sadly, with three dead and Luther, the only one who was dead at this point. One telling the story, it wasn't enough to charge him with crime because they didn't have enough evidence or physical evidence.

Plus he was already incarcerated serving a life sentence. So I guess North Carolina investigators just felt like I guess in some capacity, justice is being served. Yeah. Unfortunately.

However, the more I was reading this, I was like, what's going to happen now? On January 14th, 2009, so seven years after he was interviewed, Luther Durham, excuse me, junior was released from prison. What? Yes.

He was in his life sentence, which in Virginia was about 53 years, but actually he served 46 years. So I don't know if he was maybe per role based on time served or good behavior or whatever, but he got a life sentence, which is 53 years in Virginia plus 14. So he should have served 67 years. So you should have died in prison.

Pretty much. Pretty much. Because he going in was 21 years old. Okay.

Okay. So I mean, potentially he could have outlived that. Yeah. He definitely.

But you know, still he's coming out in his late 60s, 67 years old. Anyway, he was allowed to return to North Carolina where the rest of his family lived and state records indicate that he was under parole supervision for get this a total of 999 years. Right. Right.

So we've got someone who is, you know, 60 years old, basically, give or take. And I don't understand that. But I guess that was like, basically you will never get off parole. I mean, you could have just slapped like 40 years on there and said, you know, they'll be off.

I mean, by that point, if he lives on to 107. I don't think he would be a minister society. Right. I think he's probably fine.

Probably drinking Dr. Pepper. We don't know. We don't know.

We don't know. But he has also been a national institute where Luther had spent many years incarcerated. Stated under anonymity. That.

And I quote, around here, they called him the mayor. She said, I think it was because they were so scared of him. I was worn one time by the warden once to never be alone in the same room with him because he hated women. End quote.

Now. She went on to say, quote, he lied. He changed his story a lot. He had confided in a cellmate that he had committed those murders here in Virginia.

And that's what got him convicted. End quote. Interesting. Isn't it though?

But she would also think, when he may be copped to, like, while he's talking. They're not Carolinans. Yeah, like, why not? But he didn't say anything about that, that we know of.

Right. On December 30th, 2019, so we're fast forwarding 10 years from the time that he gets out, Luther dies, and he's 77 years old. OK. Now, at this time, he was living in Greensboro, North Carolina at an assisted living facility.

Yeah. OK, funny. So I found his obituary online, which was very short, because I wouldn't think that you would want to advertise. All right.

So what do you say about someone who's committed at least two homicides maybe for? Right. And they're like, loving brother, son. There's a joy to be around.

Well, and at that, so most obituary is that you read as like, you know, Hayley Jones was a, you know, started her career in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it tells like, kind of the story of your life is actually your narrative, right? What if my last name was Jones? Hayley Jones. I don't know if he Joneses.

Just keep up with them. Keep up with them. Yeah. Mary, Mary, Mr.

Jones. Mr. Jones. Mr.

Jones and me. Sure. The County Crow song? You don't know that?

No. Oh, I'm so old. Sorry. It's all right.

I forgot the silence, my mobile. Sorry about that. I keep getting, I got, I'm getting emails from work and for all the other. Oh, so my friend, Kerry, texting.

Hi, Kerry. OK. So I looked at his obituary and it didn't detail his crimes, obviously, nor any of the ones that he potentially could have been accused of. However, this is, you know, basically it gives like his birthday, which was July 9, 1942, and states that he's survived by two sisters, and then after the death of his parents and other siblings, it was mentioned.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, memorials could be given to a certain church, so in his name. So there it is. It was short. It was sweet.

He died. He lived. He died. He died.

He did the thing. He did the thing. OK. Cool.

Here's the time you can come to the church for burial stuff. We're going to just check him with one. I mean, and I do wonder like how once somebody has, you know, done 46 years in a penitentiary for murder, how do you go back essentially? Like, I mean, I think you probably always love your loved one, but when she wants some distance, when she wants some space, unless they just really thought he was innocent.

I don't know. So I can tell you that the Starn's home on Mulberry Church Road was put up for sale multiple times, but no one wanted to buy it because everyone in the town knew about the gas and murders that had occurred there. Eventually, the house was raised, as were several others on the street. Mainly this was due to the expansion of the Charlotte Douglas International Airport and their flight pass went directly overhead of the homes, and that was kind of an issue for families.

So yeah, I could see that. One out of there, many a time. Yep. So I guess with Luther's passing and no confession on his part, we will never truly know what happened to Mr.

and Mrs. Starn's. And it seems likely that Luther knew way more and had way more involvement than he reported to officials back in 2002. And it's so sad that there wasn't enough evidence to take him to trial because it feels like, ew, I mean, yeah, they probably didn't have enough and the DA was like, no.

But it's like, oh, gosh, I feel like that would have been another conviction. I'm also not aware if he committed any other crimes while on parole in North Carolina. I didn't say, I'm so I guess, you know, we just will never know. Was it a plot with four people or was Luther working alone?

Right. So, and you got to think, too, it's kind of a two against one scenario, right? So let's say that hypothetically, he pushes John back into the bedroom and like his wife is still in bed, like scared. Yeah.

So she's not going to physically get up and start attacking. So if she watches in horror while John's being like beaten and stabbed, he could have one turn with one and then with the other. So like she's seeing me, I have to kill her too. So it could be that and it could be a one man operation.

I feel like that would be difficult though. Definitely. And maybe these people were there. Maybe they were involved.

I don't know. I guess. Yeah. If there wasn't blood in the rest of the house, that means that it was solely in the bedroom.

Right. And it's one of those like, did they live close enough? I mean, someone's going to be screaming. Right.

I mean, it was a neighborhood. It was a working class neighborhood. So, no, they heard them. I don't know.

Not that I'm aware of from this article. That's so weird. But yeah, you got to remember, you know, all this takes place in the 60s. So, who knows?

But I came across the story and I was like, this is a great one to tell. Yeah, because it's, you just, I want it to be kind of neat and bright. Me too. And like we know.

Yeah. So, for all you, Charlottons. Yes. And folks from Charlotte who do not call yourself Charlottons.

Right. So, let us know what you think about it. Was he guilty? Did he work alone?

Did he have these friends help him? Was his car really messed up? We'll see. Did he find that 24th of the mechanic?

Did he? Did it exist back then? Does it exist now? Let us know.

Because we can always use that. Anyway, does a pilot restaurant still exist? What happened to it? I have so many questions.

Anyway, hopefully you have answers. Please shoot us an email at mountainmysteries.appleletchen at gmail.com. You can find us on Facebook at Mountain Mysteries. Tales from Appalachia.

We are on Instagram, mountainmysteries.appleletchen and patreon.com. Patreon.com. And that is where you can find bonus content. Holly and Hayley After Dark.

All the things. It's a good time. So, please join us. Hayley, do you have a shoutout this week?

I do. You found what I did. I had to log back into our thing here. It's okay.

It's been a minute. Let's do Good Let's Spill. Tennessee. Good Let's Spill.

I like it. I guess that's how you say it. It's how it's spelled. We get so many stories from Tennessee.

Oh my gosh. We love it. We love Good Let's Spill. Well, y'all, thank you for sticking around and listening to us.

And we look forward to seeing you next week. Bye. Bye.