Terry Hyatt

On April 15, 1979, 40-year-old Harriet Delaney Simmons, a mother of seven and night manager at a restaurant in Raleigh called "Johnny's Supper Club", left in her blue 1978 Toyota to visit her boyfriend in Nashville, Tennessee.[4] She never arrived, however, prompting her son-in-law, Ronald Dement, to go looking for her.[5] After following the same route she had travelled, he found her car at an I-40 rest stop near Statesville, with most of her belongings, except her car keys and purse, still inside the vehicle.[6] Considering this worrying, as she had promised to contact her children if anything had happened, the local police were mobilized to try and locate her.[4] Despite the involvement of both local authorities and the SBI, no trace of Simmons was found for more than a year.[7]

On March 23, 1980, a man walking through the Pisgah National Forest found what appeared to be the skeletal remains of a body in a wooded section not far from Candler.[8] Preliminary examinations determined that the bones were those of a female, but because of deterioration, sheriffs were unable to establish her age, race or cause of death.[8] The remains were then sent to the office of medical examiner Dr. Larry R. Tate in Chapel Hill, who deduced that the victim had been killed by four stabs to the left side of her chest.[9] Judging by the jewelry and car keys found near the body, it was suggested by this time the remains might indeed be those of Harriet Simmons.[9] Later that same day, the state medical examiner, Dr. Page Hudson, released a statement to the press, claiming that the decedent had been tentatively identified as Simmons.[10] With the recovery of her body, authorities began reinvestigating her case, temporarily considering a possible link to the Old Time Fiddler's Convention in Union Grove Township, which attracted visitors from all over the country, since Simmons had disappeared on the final day of the convention.[11] In 1984, an apparent break came to the case when drifter Henry Lee Lucas falsely admitted to Simmons' murder, as well as nine others he had committed in the Carolinas, but like most of his claims, this was later refuted.[12]

On August 25, 1979, 21-year-old Betty Sue McConnell, a young mother of one child and a Dunkin' Donuts employee working in Asheville, disappeared en route to meet a friend at a bowling alley. After failing to return home on time, her mother and older sister contacted the police, who immediately started searching for her.[13] Three hours later, the mortally-wounded McConnell was found off a bank of the French Broad River near Alexander.[14] She had been stabbed several times in the chest. An ambulance was called to save her life, but she died from her wounds en route to the hospital. Two hours later, her partially submerged automobile was found five miles away from where McConnell had been found.[14]

On October 19, 1979, Hyatt was driving around Asheville when he spotted 40-year-old Carolyn Brigman, walking home from her job at Krispy Kreme. He pulled his truck beside her and, under the threat of a knife, told her to go inside. After driving aimlessly for some time, during which he robbed her of $44 and constantly threatened to cut her throat, he eventually released Brigman after she convinced him that she did not like the police and would not contact them. Immediately after, Brigman went to the police station and described her abductor and his truck, allowing them to track down and arrest Hyatt. A few months later, he was found guilty and sentenced to a 25-year prison term for armed robbery and kidnapping.[15]

On July 9, 1987, 19-year-old Jerri Ann Jones, a cashier working at a Harris Teeter store in Derita, was reported missing after her boyfriend went to see her at the store.[16] A day later, authorities found her body in a wooded section of Derita. She was naked, and her throat had been slit. Police Capt. Larry Snider said an unknown assailant might have kidnapped her from a parking lot on Graham Street.[16] In response to her murder, Harris Teeter stores offered a $10,000 prize for any information provided to authorities relating to her murder, followed by Crime Stoppers with a $1,000 prize.[17]

A few days later, police in Charlotte announced that Jones' murder might be connected to the recent rape of a 24-year-old woman.[18] In both cases, witnesses reported seeing a white male driving a white pickup truck approach the women, and in the Charlotte rape, the woman said that her assailant drove her to an isolated area of Mount Holly-Huntersville Road, where she was raped.[18] Following this announcement, police were overwhelmed with various tips about both cases.[19] However, despite their efforts, her murder became a cold case and went unconnected to the previous two for several more years.[20] The Cold Case Squad of the Charlotte Police Department, when interviewed regarding the unsolved cases in 1994, expressed their hope that in the future, it would be solved using advancing DNA technology.[21]