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134 Search Results for "down home jail"
Reforming lives on a wing and a prayer
Published: 2014-01-22 14:19:51A proposal to convert a closed-down state prison into a halfway house and homeless shelter in Haywood County is gaining steam. The old prison was given to the county two years ago after the state shut it down, but the county has no real use for it. So it...
Read MoreJailer’s love saga comes full circle
Published: 2013-12-11 14:39:49Who knows what Anita Vestal saw in Jeffrey Miles, or why she sprang him from jail and ran away with him, or how she justified leaving her husband and four young children behind, possibly forever. . He was a young, lanky black man from urban Atlanta with ...
Read MoreUPDATED: Undercover bust targets dealers in every corner of the county
Published: 2013-12-04 14:30:04An undercover investigation in Haywood County targeting alleged drug dealers culminated in a sweeping roundup last month, netting 31 suspects with 114 charges in all. . “Today we see the results of many months of hard work by officers across this count...
Read MoreThe how-to of a jail break
Published: 2013-11-27 14:56:01It was a fairly simple inside job in the end, one easily borrowed from the playbook of any Hollywood jailbreak. Anita Vestal was just a novice jailer, with less than six months on the job at the Swain County jail. But she single-handedly sprang an inmate...
Read MoreAwaiting her fate: Jailer helped murder suspect escape jail, fled with him to California
Published: 2013-11-27 14:51:27The jury trial of a Swain County jailer accused of springing a murderer from jail more than four years ago will conclude next week with a certain guilty verdict. . “I’ve come to terms with it,” said Anita Vestal, who masterminded an escape plot for...
Read MoreCourt system in Jackson angling for more space
Published: 2013-10-22 20:02:18An expansion of Jackson County’s court facilities could be in the cards, pending a $30,000 analysis of what some in the legal system have dubbed a space shortage. The county has hired an architectural firm to study space needs of the court system in co...
Read MoreDo what it takes to protect battered women
Published: 2013-07-31 16:39:15There was so much blood all over the place that her home looked more like a slaughterhouse. That’s what she said. She said that he chased her back into the bathroom and she felt the cold, sharp barrel of a pistol pushed hard against her head, and his t...
Read MoreSwain challengers question spending
Published: 2013-07-25 20:31:04All five seats on the Swain County Board of Commissioners are up for election this year. The winners will serve for four years. . The county board will have at least two new faces. One of the sitting commissioners was ousted in the May primary, and one i...
Read MoreFront-row Kid dreams of riding once again
Published: 2013-07-25 19:15:57“Riding the range once more Toting my old 44 Where you sleep out every night Where the only law is right I’m back in the saddle again.” — Gene Autry (and others) . Back in the 1940s when Saturday westerns were “the big event” at Sylva’s Rit...
Read More1882 Cowee Tunnel disaster comes into 21st century spotlight
Published: 2013-06-19 12:55:13Charged with stealing, 15-year-old Charles Eason was sentenced to work on a prison chain gang. It was 1882, and the teenager from Martin County soon found himself side-by-side with other convicts, many two and three times his age. Mostly from the eastern...
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