Betty Jean Baucum

Betty Jean “Susie” Baucum (1970-1994) was one of the 11 women killed by the Charlotte Strangler, Henry Louis Wallace, one of America’s worst serial killers. She was a nice, quiet woman. He killed her two days after her 24th birthday.

She was a manager at Bojangles, a fast food place near Eastland Mall in east Charlotte, North Carolina. She came to the city from Laurel Hills, a small town a hundred miles to the east. She was working 50 hours a week to save money to complete her education. She had a three-year-old daugher, B.J.

Her cousin said, “She could make you feel like a million dollars on your worse day. She had the most beautiful smile, one that could light up any room.”

She knew Wallace through his girlfriend, who also worked at Bojangles. Someone else who had worked at Bojangles, Caroline Love, was killed two years earlier. By Wallace. But no one knew.

Wallace was hooked on crack. He needed money bad to buy more. Two weeks had gone by since he had killed and robbed Vanessa Mack. It did not even make the news, so he thought it would be safe to rob and kill someone else.

He went to see Brandi Henderson, but her boyfriend (a friend of Wallace’s) was there. Wallace would come back later, but in the meantime he went to see Baucum. She lived in the same Lake apartments: he had seen her car, a blue 1988 Nissan Pulsar, parked outside.

He asked Baucum if he could use her telephone. She let him in. He acted like he was looking up a number but then when she turned her back, he put his hands round her neck and asked for the combination to unlock the safe at Bojangles. He had robbed Bojangles twice before.

It took her 30 minutes to produce the combination. She wrote it down for him and he let go of her. She asked why he was doing this. He said he was sick and had hurt many people. She said she forgave him and told him he needed help. That got him angry: he pushed her to floor and they fought. He got the upper hand, put a towel round her neck and held it so tight she nearly passed out. He took her to the bedroom, undressed her and raped her and killed her.

He took $80 from her purse as well as her keys, her television and her gun. She had got the gun for protection a while back when her roommate had moved out.

He put the stuff in her car and sold the television for crack. He went back to get her VCR (and to make sure she was dead) and sold that too. Then he went on to rape, kill and rob Brandi Henderson that same night.

Later he got rid of Baucum’s car, wiping off the fingerprints. But there was one place he forgot to wipe: the trunk in the back. It would prove to be his undoing.

See also:

• If you do an Internet search, keep in mind that some of the press accounts wrote her last name as “Baucom”, not “Baucum”.
• YouTube tribute put up by her cousin
• Henry Louis Wallace
• Brandi Henderson