When Justice Comes To Charlotte : Guest Blog by Julianne Wallace

August 16, 2008

[Julianne Wallace is a freelance writer and aspiring author who is currently working on two books at once. She has blogged in multiple genres, but currently writes true crime as her alter ego, Imp Queen. Julianne is also co-author of the true crime website The Dreamin' Demon]

June 3, 1993 was a balmy, humid Thursday night in Charlotte, North Carolina. Tasha Lopes was seventeen. Her friend Raylynn Chelton was two years younger. Both girls were pretty, with long, dark curly hair and striking eyes.

Raylynn and her mother lived at the Emerald Bay Apartments. The complex was known for teenage partying, and Tasha and Raylynn were hanging out in the parking lot that night. At first, Raylynn's mother thought the girls had gone to Tasha's house. They did that sometimes, and Olympic High School was already out for the summer, so she wasn't too worried. The last Tasha's mother had heard, the pair was at Raylynn's house. Most of a day went by before the mothers realized their girls were gone.

Five days later, Tasha Lopes and Raylynn Chelton were found dead, left naked in a field at the Chemway Industrial Park in northwest Charlotte. Both girls had been sexually assaulted and shot in the head. Tasha had one bullet wound; Raylynn had been shot three times at close range.

As the summer went by, rumors flew, but no real information seemed forthcoming. Two local thugs, Robert Chevelle Friday and Myron Terrell Burris, were the best suspects, but there wasn't enough evidence to charge the men. Over months and then years, the case went cold. Tasha Lopes and Raylynn Chelton were all but forgotten, except by their families, and no clear leads emerged in either case for over a decade.

In 2003, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department formed its Cold Case Division. At the time of its formation, the cold case squad was faced with nearly 300 unsolved murders over four decades. One of the first cases investigated was the double murder of Tasha and Raylynn. Within months, witnesses began to surface, and the case began to come together. One witness described seeing the girls forced into a Nissan Sentra at gunpoint. And police finally had enough forensic evidence on Burris and Friday to make their move. In October 2003, Robert Chevelle Friday and Myron Terrell Burris were charged with murder.

Enter Antwan Maurice Sanders. Burris and Friday were not going to go down without their partner in crime, and forensic evidence seemed clear that a third person was involved. When Sanders was brought in for questioning, he was happy to talk about what he said were the actions of Burris and Friday. In a taped statement to police, Antwan Sanders had plenty to say.

According to Sanders, Burris and Friday had gone to the Emerald Bay Apartments on the night of June 3, 1993 to rob a drug dealer. The dealer wasn't home, Sanders said, so they picked Tasha and Raylynn at random. Sanders told investigators, "They were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

The three men lured the girls to the car with promises of marijuana, said Sanders, but then abducted the girls at gunpoint, forcing them into the backseat of the Sentra. From there, they drove to the Chemway Industrial Park and made the girls get out of the car and strip, telling them that if they complied, their lives would be spared.

After all three men sexually assaulted the frightened girls, Sanders said he went to wait in the car while the other two men told the girls to stop crying.  If they'd just stop crying, Sanders reported the men saying, they could go home. Tasha and Raylynn begged for their lives, tears running down their faces, crying, "Please don't kill me!"

According to Sanders, Burris and Friday killed them anyway. The men stole the girls' jewelry and left the bodies in the field to rot. But of course, the way Antwan Sanders told it, he didn't do any shooting, he didn't do any gun pointing, and he only did a little bit of raping - and that after the other guys started it. In fact, Sanders whined, Robert Chevelle Friday had threatened to kill him twice that night, just for being there.

Investigators didn't buy it, and went to talk to suspect Myron Terrell Burris. After presenting their case to suspect Burris, he cut a deal. He'd plead guilty to two counts of second-degree murder, if sentencing could wait until after he testified against Friday and Sanders. The prosecution agreed.

Finally, on July 31, 2008, Antwan Sanders went on trial for the murders of Tasha Lopes and Raylynn Chelton. He was charged with two counts each of first-degree murder, sexual offense, robbery and kidnapping. The prosecution's star witness? Myron Terrell Burris.

As I write, the jury is deliberating in the case against Antwan Sanders. If he is convicted, he faces up to life in prison. Robert Chevelle Friday's trial is still pending. But fifteen years after the brutal murders of Tasha Lopes and Raylynn Chelton, this trial brings a glimmer of hope to two families who had begun to think this day would never come.

Thanks to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Cold Case Division, there may be justice coming to Charlotte.

Please note that Investigation Discovery does not necessarily endorse any of the views expressed by guest bloggers and Investigation Discovery is not responsible for the information contained in guest posts.

Ghosts and Murder : Guest Blog by Leslie Rule

August 09, 2008

[Leslie Rule is the best-selling author of two suspense novels and four nonfiction books of ghost stories. She has published dozens of articles in national magazines, including Reader's Digest. Leslie is also a photographer and has photographed many cops and killers for her mother's (true crime author Ann Rule) books. Her ghost books are filled with dramatic black and white photos of the haunted locations she investigates. Leslie grew up in a haunted house in the Seattle area. Her latest book, Ghost In The Mirror - Real Life Cases of Spirit Encounters, will be in stores later this month]

When true crime writer, David Lohr, emailed me an invitation to blog at ID, I asked him if he had me confused with my mother, author Ann Rule. While she writes about murder, I write about ghosts. David wrote back and assured me that he knows who I am and is well aware of the fact that I write about ghosts. As an author of seven books and numerous magazine articles, I've covered a variety of topics, but always swore that I would never write true crime. That, after all, is my mother's genre and I wanted to develop my own. But as I began researching the first of my four books of true ghost stories, I realized that the most haunted locations were the sites of violent crimes. My genre has collided with my mother's, and many of the cases I cover involve murder. I've also noted that the sites with the most paranormal activity are the ones where the murders remain unsolved. Restless spirits of the dead seem to want justice for they often settle down once their killers are caught and punished.

Tragic souls around the world remain earthbound, tethered to the spots where they took their last, desperate breaths. I've covered many of these cases, including a chilling mass murder in 1912 in a little farmhouse in Villisca, Iowa. The killer (or killers) attacked a sleeping family with an axe. Joe and Sarah Moore, their four children and two of their friends were violently slain. Investigators were stumped. Of course, it didn't help that a crowd of curious onlookers had pushed their way into the home to gawk at the mutilated victims. They destroyed the crime scene before police could arrive.

Today the house is a museum where fans of the macabre can tour and even spend the night. When I interviewed Brenda Marble, from the Miller Paranormal Team, she confided that their group had heard the distinctive sound of dripping blood during their overnight stay. The psychic imprint is powerful, despite the fact that the unknown murder or murderers are long dead by now. Perhaps time stands still for the ghosts. They may be unaware of the passing years.

While it is far too late for the Villisca killers to be prosecuted, many other murderers roam freely among us. And their victims, too, cry out for justice. In fact, one Pennsylvania victim materialized on several separate occasions, startling an office worker, Katie Furman, who had arrived at her job before dawn and was working alone in the building. The weeping apparition with the wet hair appeared so solid that Katie at first assumed she was a live human being. The next time the ghost floated by, Katie was shocked to see that she had no legs. She was so disturbed by the crying lady that she wrote to me for advice. Though no one can say for certain who the ghost is, Katie felt that the anguished spirit belonged to a murdered woman who had been dumped nearby. The victim was found in a maroon suitcase on July 11, 1995. She was in a puddle, her hair wet and her legs missing.

I flew to Pennsylvania to investigate. Acclaimed forensic sculpture Frank Bender had done the reconstruction bust of the Jane Doe and he accompanied me to meet with Corporal Mark Healey of the Embreeville Police Department. Coporal Healey took us to the dumpsite on Valley Creek Road. We all hoped that publicizing the case would bring new leads. I included the story in my book, Ghosts Among Us - True Stories of Spirit Encounters.

The book was published in 2004, but no one has come forward with new information. The case still niggles at me--especially since I found a similar case in Las Vegas that I suspect is related. In each case, a woman with severed legs was found in a suitcase. The Jane Does were discovered on opposite sides of the country within nine weeks of each other. Each site is in the vicinity of a railroad track. While an autopsy revealed that the Nevada victim is Hispanic, the Pennsylvania victim may also be Hispanic.

Maybe both women are from Mexico. Perhaps a bilingual crime buff will do some online research and compare these victims to missing women from Mexico.

The case profiles are listed on the doe network at Doenetwork.org.

The doe network is a nonprofit, volunteer powered website devoted to  thousands of lost and found people. For more information on the two victims above, look for case files 147UFPA and 338UFNV. If these homicides are the work of a serial killer, Hot Case 618 may also be connected. It was 2007 when, once again, remains were found in a suitcase.

I do not know if the Pennsylvania ghost still appears in the office building. Katie Furman now works elsewhere, and no others have contacted me to say they have seen a crying spirit there. But even if no one can see her, the sad, lost ghost may wander there. Perhaps with your help, this case can be solved and the troubled spirit can find the peace she deserves.

Email Leslie Rule through her website at: Ghostygirl.com.

Author's note: For those of you who get more involved with the Doe Network and think you see a match while perusing it, please contact Todd Matthews rather than detectives. Todd has records of possible matches already ruled out. If you come up with something new, he can quickly get the information to the correct authorities. Another caveat:  Though body photos are never used on the Doe Network, this site can be disturbing.

Leslie Rule's photo courtesy of Leslie Rule.

Caylee Anthony Weekend Update: By: Gary C. King

August 02, 2008

The question of whether there are any new leads in the case of missing 2-year-old Caylee Anthony, who purportedly disappeared on or around June 9, 2008, seems to be on many peoples' minds this weekend, particularly after crime scene investigators paid a visit to Casey Anthony's parents' home yesterday, August 1, 2008.  According to reports in various Orlando, Florida media outlets, CSI personnel only stayed for about five minutes at Caylee's maternal grandparents' home, but were seen leaving the house with two large paper bags.  The Orange County Sheriff's Office, recently under fire from the district attorney's office for leaking information about the case to the media, would not reveal what was taken from the home but indicated that the family was being cooperative with investigators.

Although the cops seemed to have clammed up with regard to revealing details about their investigation, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that there is something wrong with the date(s) of Caylee's alleged disappearance.  In addition to the June 9th date, family members claim that Caylee was last seen on June 15th, and Casey's ex-fiancé claims to have heard Caylee's voice in the background during a telephone conversation he had with Casey on June 24th, the same date that Caylee's grandfather, George Anthony, reported the gas cans that he believes were stolen from his shed.  Someone, it would seem, could provide a precise date when Caylee was last seen, and that most likely someone would be Caylee's mother.

Orange County investigators believe that the biggest obstruction to finding out the truth about what happened to Caylee is her mother, who claimed at one point that she had left Caylee with a babysitter, Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez.

"Casey has the key to this," Orange County Deputy Sheriff Carlos Padilla has said.  "Casey was the last person to be seen with the child and we still believe that Casey knows more than what she's telling us and she's the only one who can tell us something that can turn this around."

Investigators remain hopeful that results of DNA and other evidence taken from Casey's home, her parents' home, and the trunk of the car Casey was driving recently will provide the missing pieces to this puzzle.  They expect some of the results as early as next week.

In other news related to the case, a fundraiser for the Kid Finders Network was held on Friday, August 1, at Speed Park Motorsports in Daytona Beach. Proceeds from the fundraising event will go toward helping locate all missing children in Florida.

And a night earlier, Cindy Anthony appeared on CNN's Larry King Live to tell King and his viewers that she was not a liar, an apparent reference to what she had initially said to the police about her car having been stolen. She spoke briefly about her meeting with federal investigators on Wednesday, but would not reveal what she told them. She told King that she thinks she knows who has Caylee.

"I said whatever I needed to do to get the authorities to come help me," Cindy Anthony said on King's show. "I worked on whatever I could to get them out there, so I'm not a liar. I just stretched the truth a little bit. The car wasn't where it was supposed to be, so I said it was stolen because I didn't have any reason (for police) to come to my house. That doesn't make me a liar or a murderer, and that doesn't make my daughter (one) either, just because she had some mistruths."

Caylee also made the cover of People magazine's August 11, 2008 edition, which has already hit the newsstands in many locations around the country. Sheriff's Deputy Carlos Padilla told reporters for the magazine that there was no evidence that can prove that Caylee is dead, though most people believe that she is. He said that investigators are closely watching the extensive media coverage surrounding the case as one way to help them form a clearer picture of what may have happened.

"I can honestly say we've had other cases that made the national media, (but) I don't recall anything more than this," Padilla said to reporters for a local television station. "It's something that's been phenomenal, unbelievable…keep in mind, we have a whole unit and also have civilian personnel taking down tips and turning them over to police."

He also reiterated that Casey, if she would talk to investigators, could be instrumental in determining what happened to Caylee.

"We truly believe she has information that could help us find her little daughter," Padilla said.

Related Links:
Full Coverage : Casey Anthony Case
Bizarre Crime of the Week, by Gary C. King