People in this chapter · Caroline Love

On June 15, 1992, Caroline Love finished a shift at a Bojangles on Central Avenue in Charlotte. She exchanged a ten-dollar bill for a roll of quarters so she could do laundry. Her cousin Robert Ross saw her walking, gave her a ride, and watched her go inside. When she missed work, her employer called her sister, Kathy. Kathy left a note and tried to reach Caroline’s roommate, Sadie McKnight. McKnight’s boyfriend, Henry Louis Wallace, went with the two women when they filed a missing-person report. Kathy later noticed that the bed sheets were gone and furniture had been moved. Investigator Tony Rice could not find the quarters. There was still no sign of Caroline. North Carolina Supreme Court opinion

Nearly two years later, Wallace said he had copied McKnight’s key and entered the apartment when both women were away. He told investigators that he took the quarters, removed Caroline’s body, and left with clothes to create the appearance that she had gone away. On March 13, 1994, after his confession, he directed officers to a wooded area off Statesville Road. The medical examiner recovered her remains there and ultimately attributed her death to strangulation. Caroline had been twenty years old. Court record · The Charlotte Observer’s reconstruction

Shawna Denise Hawk was studying to become a paralegal at Central Piedmont Community College and worked for Wallace at a Taco Bell on Sharon Amity Road. When her mother, Sylvia Denise “Dee” Sumpter, came home on February 19, 1993, Shawna’s car was gone but her coat and purse were still in the house. It was cold. Shawna also had missed a commitment to pick up her godson. Her boyfriend later found her, and emergency personnel took her to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The medical examiner determined she had been strangled. The record preserves the details her mother recognized immediately: the coat her daughter had worn earlier, the purse she took everywhere, and a promise she was expected to keep. Court record · Mothers of Murdered Offspring

Accounts of the Charlotte killings often begin with a total of ten. The court’s account concerns the nine murder charges that reached a jury. The case of Sharon Lovett Nance belongs in the city’s history as well. In March 1994, contemporary reporting listed Nance among the initial murder accusations. The Observer later reported that Wallace confessed to killing her and that her case never went to trial. Those records document a separate case without a verdict. Contemporary Washington Post report · The Charlotte Observer