clearly. After setting the fire, the killer, or killers, probably had turned around, gone back to U.S. 264, and continued west. That road led to Raleigh and N.C. State University, two hours away. There, less than an hour after the fire was spotted, Chris Pritchard supposedly was awakened by a telephone call from his sister, telling him that his mother and stepfather had been beaten and stabbed.
Nothing that the detectives had discovered so far proved that Chris was involved, but the map and the location of the fire fueled the suspicions they already harbored about him and his sister. They wanted to make sure that neither he nor anybody else knew that they had found the map and the murder weapon, and they vowed one another to secrecy. Nobody outside of the investigative team and the district attorney’s office was to know anything about the fire, the map or the knife.
One item that the detectives had searched for in vain at the fire site was the baseball bat or club that had been used to beat the Von Steins. Surely, if the killer had abandoned the knife in the fire, he also would have gotten rid of the club. But if it had been put in the fire, portions of it surely would have been found in the debris, for as Bonnie described it, it was too long to fit in the small circle of the blaze. If it had been tossed into the woods or a ditch near the fire site, their search should have turned it up.
Perhaps the bat had been abandoned earlier, closer to the murder scene. A person carrying a bloodied bat in an upper-class subdivision at three-forty-five in the morning would have risked suspicion and detection if spotted. Maybe he had tossed it somewhere near the house
So Wednesday afternoon a group of officers descended again on Smallwood. They prowled through backyards and empty lots, waded drainage ditches, poked into hedgerows, looked into storm drains, but they saw no sign of a baseball bat, a club, a steel pipe, or anything else that might have been used to split open Lieth’s head.
Some of Bonnie’s relatives were at the Von Stein house that afternoon. Her only brother, George Bates, and his wife, Peggy, spotted Hope and Young searching near the house and called them over.
Earlier that day, George had taken Chris to Raleigh to pick up his car, the ’65 Ford Mustang fastback.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” George told the officers, “but Chris and Angela aren’t acting right. They’re going on just like nothing’s happened.”
He went on to tell some things that had been bothering him about Chris particularly, about his problems with grades at school, about his disappearance earlier that month, and the outrageous tale he’d told to explain it. Something just wasn’t right with Chris, George said.
“I don’t know if Chris is involved or not,” said his wife, “but if he is involved and you need a family member to run interference, just let us know.”
11
Thursday’s Washington Daily News reported that a ten-thousand-dollar reward was being offered for information leading to the conviction of Lieth Von Stein’s killer. Police Chief Harry Stokes and SBI Supervisor R. P. Hawley had requested that Governor Jim Martin approve a five-thousand-dollar reward, and he had done so. National Spinning Company had agreed to match the state’s reward. The story quoted Chief Stokes, who said that the investigation of the murder “is definitely still a priority,” and that he was confident the case would be solved. “I have a very positive outlook on it,” he said.
Just as every other newspaper story about the murder had done, this one also mentioned that Angela Pritchard had “apparently slept through the attack in another upstairs bedroom” and that her brother, Chris, was away at N.C. State when the attack occurred.
Angela and Chris were much on the minds of Detective Hope and Agent Young. And on Thursday afternoon, they went to a local company to talk to a young man who knew both teenagers. The young
Nothing that the detectives had discovered so far proved that Chris was involved, but the map and the location of the fire fueled the suspicions they already harbored about him and his sister. They wanted to make sure that neither he nor anybody else knew that they had found the map and the murder weapon, and they vowed one another to secrecy. Nobody outside of the investigative team and the district attorney’s office was to know anything about the fire, the map or the knife.
One item that the detectives had searched for in vain at the fire site was the baseball bat or club that had been used to beat the Von Steins. Surely, if the killer had abandoned the knife in the fire, he also would have gotten rid of the club. But if it had been put in the fire, portions of it surely would have been found in the debris, for as Bonnie described it, it was too long to fit in the small circle of the blaze. If it had been tossed into the woods or a ditch near the fire site, their search should have turned it up.
Perhaps the bat had been abandoned earlier, closer to the murder scene. A person carrying a bloodied bat in an upper-class subdivision at three-forty-five in the morning would have risked suspicion and detection if spotted. Maybe he had tossed it somewhere near the house
So Wednesday afternoon a group of officers descended again on Smallwood. They prowled through backyards and empty lots, waded drainage ditches, poked into hedgerows, looked into storm drains, but they saw no sign of a baseball bat, a club, a steel pipe, or anything else that might have been used to split open Lieth’s head.
Some of Bonnie’s relatives were at the Von Stein house that afternoon. Her only brother, George Bates, and his wife, Peggy, spotted Hope and Young searching near the house and called them over.
Earlier that day, George had taken Chris to Raleigh to pick up his car, the ’65 Ford Mustang fastback.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” George told the officers, “but Chris and Angela aren’t acting right. They’re going on just like nothing’s happened.”
He went on to tell some things that had been bothering him about Chris particularly, about his problems with grades at school, about his disappearance earlier that month, and the outrageous tale he’d told to explain it. Something just wasn’t right with Chris, George said.
“I don’t know if Chris is involved or not,” said his wife, “but if he is involved and you need a family member to run interference, just let us know.”
11
Thursday’s Washington Daily News reported that a ten-thousand-dollar reward was being offered for information leading to the conviction of Lieth Von Stein’s killer. Police Chief Harry Stokes and SBI Supervisor R. P. Hawley had requested that Governor Jim Martin approve a five-thousand-dollar reward, and he had done so. National Spinning Company had agreed to match the state’s reward. The story quoted Chief Stokes, who said that the investigation of the murder “is definitely still a priority,” and that he was confident the case would be solved. “I have a very positive outlook on it,” he said.
Just as every other newspaper story about the murder had done, this one also mentioned that Angela Pritchard had “apparently slept through the attack in another upstairs bedroom” and that her brother, Chris, was away at N.C. State when the attack occurred.
Angela and Chris were much on the minds of Detective Hope and Agent Young. And on Thursday afternoon, they went to a local company to talk to a young man who knew both teenagers. The young
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