The Rocky Mount Killer is an American serial killer in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Since 2005 he has killed at least six women, possibly nine – three women are missing. No one knows who he is. “Rocky Mount Killer” is my name – the press has yet to give him one.
It took six bodies and four years before the police formed a task force in June 2009 and started to get somewhat serious. In July the FBI joined in. In August it made news across the country when AP and CNN carried the story.
The police are saying little. They are starting to look into it and have leads and suspects, but have yet to search the woods where many of the bodies were found and where there might be three others.
The murdered women were all black prostitutes hooked on drugs or drink who came from the edge of town. Most were found near the same stretch of road, their naked bodies thrown away in the woods, often lying there for months because the police did not care to look for them:
Found dead: May 29th 2005: Melody Wiggins, 29
Found dead: August 17th 2007: Jackie Thorpe, 35
Found dead: March 13th 2008: Ernestine Battle, 50
Found dead: February 2009: unidentified
Found dead: March 7th 2009: Taraha Nicholson, 28
Found dead: June 29th 2009: Jarneice Hargrove, 31
The three missing women:
Christine Boone
Joyce Durham
Yolanda Lancaster
When a white woman was missing the other week, the police held a press conference. None of these women got a press conference.
Rocky Mount, the birthplace of Thelonius Monk, won an award for being an all-American city. It is in tobacco country, an hour by car north-east of Raleigh. Blacks live on the east side, on the “wrong side” of the railroad tracks that divide the city.
On the east side the serial killer is all people can talk about. Meanwhile on the west side hardly anyone even knew about it till June when Hargrove’s body was found. Even the news reporters did not know. But the police certainly did: they are the ones who picked up all six bodies.
The police did not get serious till the news started covering the murders. But the news did not cover it till the women’s faces began to appear on billboards.
The billboards were the work of M.O.M.S. – Missing or Mudered Sisters, founded by Stephanie Jones, 28, who knew two of the dead. She raised money through fish fries and motorcycle rides. The billboard company gave her a good discount and one donor gave $20,000 – half for the billboard and half as a reward to find the killer.
Experts say the Rocky Mount Killer is most likely black – because 80% of serial killers go after their own race. He seems to have been in the military or the police force because he leaves little evidence behind. He has a car where the passenger-side door cannot be opened from the inside. He gets his kicks from controlling women through sex.
He will continue to kill till he is stopped.
Thanks to Siditty for featuring this story on her blog and thereby letting me know about it.
See also:
- News articles: blackwebportal.com, The Loop21, CNN, AP
- M.O.M.S.
- The Missing White Woman Syndrome
- The police
- Romona Moore, a missing black woman – an excellent example of racist policing and news coverage
- Henry Louis Wallace – black serial killer from North Carolina. Same pattern of police disinterest so long as only black or Latina women are getting killed.
- Virginia Dotson – yet more disregard for black life by the police (video)
Abagond 