A series of anonymous letters questioning the behavior of two high ranking members of the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office have gotten the attention of the Sheriff, school administrators, and the attorneys involved in an ongoing lawsuit against the New Hanover County School Board. The letters allege suspicious behavior by the law enforcement officers at critical times in the teacher sex abuse scandal, and imply they helped make sure allegations of improper teacher behavior did not result in criminal charges.
A civil lawsuit against Kelly and the New Hanover County School Schools System, filed by some of the victims from the criminal case, is now proceeding through the court system. Other former students who did not participate in the criminal proceedings against Kelly have since come forward to allege he also abused them, and joined the list of plaintiffs in the civil suit.
More people, especially in homes along our coast, are choosing to install residential elevators. The trend has elevator inspectors and mechanics raising concerns about what they consider to be a growing public safety hazard: residential elevators in North Carolina are effectively unregulated.
Nearly 20 years after her disappearance, Kynande Bennett has yet to be found. The four-year-old South Carolina girl was reported missing by her parents Sept. 29, 2002. They said she’d been kidnapped from the Whiteville K-Mart.
More issues for a local oral surgeon, who was already under investigation after a prominent doctor died following a dental procedure in his care. Dr. Mark Austin had his Leland dental practice shut down earlier this month, and the SBI is investigating allegations of Austin's prescription drug abuse.
The victim in the case, 26-year-old Greyson Leyrer, is sharing her story now the plea deal is over. She said she couldn’t believe it when Appler approached her in 2019 with a lewd offer for a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Within the last year, there have been two separate elevator crashes in Holden Beach. The same type of Waupaca residential elevator, which is subject to a recall, was involved in both cases. Attorneys estimate there are well over 100 of these elevators installed in homes along the local coast.
“She was part of the FBI family, and the FBI family wasn’t going to quit on this case until they figured out who did it and why they did it,” retired Agent Larry Bonney said.
“He had all my belongings, and my money, and he disappeared, and no one cared and nobody seemed like there was anything that could be done. I was lucky if any agency even return my calls," homeowner Larry Ward said.
The New Hanover County Board of Education voted to begin the process of renaming the football stadium at Laney High School during its meeting Tuesday evening
The actions of New Hanover County Board of Commissioners Chair Julia Olson-Boseman are being questioned by the Town of Carolina Beach after she allegedly directed the County Manager to instruct county staff to conduct an investigation into the recent fire in Carolina Beach – despite having no jurisd
Three senate lawmakers are seeking to rewrite the 2015 law regarding law enforcement dashcam or bodycam video being released to the public or media organizations.
The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality has fined the Chemours Company nearly $200,000 for previous violations related to failures with two treatment systems at its Fayetteville Works site that filter GenX and other PFAS from water before it enters the Cape Fear River.
Warrants help explain how Landreth's body was found. Anonymous tips helped them find her vehicle, and witnesses who say suspect tried to sell them the guns an pickup truck stolen from her.
It’s a story that made headlines in other parts of the state. But it wasn’t until two years after Nicholas Kehagias was hired as a Pender County Sheriff’s Deputy that many in Southeastern North Carolina learned of his infamous track record in Harnett County.
Six years after the National Weather Service determined there were problems with the KTLX Doppler radar in Shallotte, residents are still waiting for a solution. Meteorologists say they can't see the full picture to warn residents about severe weather because of the Doppler's shortcomings.
Chadbourn Police Chief Anthony Spivey is off the job on paid administrative leave, town officials confirmed to WECT Wednesday. Town Manager Jerome Chestnut would not elaborate on the nature of the investigation, but said he made the decision to place Spivey on leave last Friday.
The Bladen County Tax Administrator discovered that they had been taxing Whitted on all 40 acres of her property, rather than just the 29 acres she owns in Bladen County, for the last 18 years.
It was an undercover FBI operation that went on for well over a year in the early 1980s. Dubbed “Colcor” by federal officials, the far reaching organized crime scandal shocked the community with the eventual arrest of over 50 people, including about a dozen public officials.
In a letter to state regulators, CFPUA expressed its concerns about the “ineffectiveness of measures Chemours has taken so far to reduce the mass loading of its PFAS into the Cape Fear River.”
WECT has confirmed that New Hanover Regional Medical Center will no longer be offering patients the popular “prompt pay discount” now that it has officially merged with Novant Health. WECT was made aware the 25% discount was discontinued by a disappointed patient.
Of the $70 million in overpayments across the state, officials estimate only $7-8 million was due to fraud. The rest seems to involve honest mistakes by applicants for unemployment, many of whom had never been out of work before or needed to file for assistance.
Early this week, simmering frustrations boiled over with a multi-million-dollar system the state of North Carolina bought to track vaccine administration.
The North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners is investigating the unusual billing trends of Dr. Michael Hassan, the same Wilmington oral surgeon already facing dozens of criminal charges for allegedly sexually assaulting his female patients while they were sedated.
The VA’s Office of Construction and Facilities Management (CFM) claimed they got 14 competing offers to build the clinic, but were only able to produce two of those offers for investigators, despite federal requirements to keep that paperwork.
PFAS, including GenX which was discovered in the Cape Fear River in 2017, are man-made chemicals produced by Dupont/Chemours and used for the manufacture of nonstick coatings, fire suppression foams, and for many other purposes in industrial processes and commercial products. They’re also known as “
The FBI file from the case was recently released to WECT. Though heavily redacted, newly revealed details help explain how investigators determined Lacy died by his own hands.
It’s been more than 10 months since the New Hanover County School Board voted to approve an agreement allowing former Superintendent Tim Markley to resign - granting him more than $200,000 worth of benefits.
To the best of her understanding, while she doesn’t have to repay that portion of the loan to the government, Miller-Motte still gets to keep the money that was borrowed on her daughter’s behalf.
As the first doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine arrives in North Carolina, details have slowly emerged about how the first doses are being distributed.
But WECT recently learned three children ages five and younger died by homicide in Pender County in 2017. It took more than a year to get autopsy reports for some of those cases, all of which remain unsolved.
WECT has obtained emails that indicate a local judge, who previously served as president of the Lower Cape Fear Republican Women’s (LCFRW) group, was directly involved in the sale and auction of two hats that were allegedly marketed as being signed by President Donald Trump.
The State Bureau of Investigation is looking into criminal allegations surrounding a local political group. The group is accused of auctioning off merchandise allegedly hand signed by the president, that turned out to be fake.
The Town of Carolina Beach has brought in millions of dollars’ worth of revenue from Freeman Park without owning the vast majority of the land at the North End. But the land the town does claim ownership over has been questioned in the past and was, at one point, disputed by the county.
Thousands of North Carolinians have been forced from their homes this year, despite a pair of orders from the Governor banning evictions Leegraciea Lewis, who was forced from her apartment and is now living in an extended stay hotel, is one of them.
Election administrators across North Carolina continue to update the information of people who voted on election day, even as calls increase for that information to be made public much sooner. But the process is working on schedule, just as it always has.
Control of the North Carolina General Assembly, and thus a hand in the once-a-decade redraw of congressional and state legislative maps, may come down to a handful of state Senate races. And the money aimed at those races shows it.
Thirteen military veterans being housed at a Wilmington nursing home will likely have to move, after the nursing home owners failed to meet minimum standards required by the federal government.
While state-run prisons in North Carolina have been court ordered to take extra steps to protect inmates from COVID-19, the same rules do not apply to county jails. As a result, each county sheriff is operating their jail by a different set of rules.
Since Sheriff Greene took office in December 2018, his department has accepted $3.8 million dollars in surplus military equipment from the federal government, including two helicopters, a mine resistant vehicle, nine cargo and utility trucks, boats, 300 magazine cartridges and nine riot shields.
After months of legislative and legal fights over the rules for absentee-by-mail voting, North Carolina finally has some clarity two weeks before Election Day.
State Auditor Beth Wood tells WECT the State Auditor’s office did not and would not recommended "blanket travel authorization" for the college president and trustees.
