People in this chapter · Angela “Angel” Stewart · Matt Stewart

What Angela told police

Angela told police that an intruder came into the bedroom and started shooting without saying a word, WBTV reported. She could not give a description of the gunman and could not think of any reason someone would target her family. By mid-July, WBTV reported that she had described a masked gunman who was tall.

She was shot in the arm. Holding their 2-year-old son, she ran to a neighbor’s house and screamed for help. The neighbor, Mike Lawson, told WBTV that she and the boy were covered in blood when she reached his door, and that he helped her dial 911. The couple’s 6-year-old daughter was still asleep in the house. Their oldest daughter was spending the night with a friend down the street. Neither child at home was hurt.

The investigative summary in the autopsy report gives the same outline. It says the assailant or assailants shot Matt and his wife in the bedroom. It also says she ran from the home with their 2-year-old son and called for help from a neighbor’s home. The report places Matt in the upstairs master bathroom. Investigators told WSOC in 2026 that Matt fought back. He was shot and stabbed multiple times.

Sources: WBTV, June 11, 2009 · WBTV, June 12, 2009 · WBTV, July 14, 2009 · Autopsy report A09-821 (clinical) · WSOC, 2026

Three clocks for one night

Three time references appear in the record, and they measure different things. WSOC’s 2026 report says Angela sensed someone in the room around 12:30 a.m. The incident form gives an occurrence window of about 12:43–12:44 a.m. The computer-aided dispatch printout records the precise second the first call was received: 12:45:32 a.m.

The dispatch log is the firmest clock for the police response. It cannot fix the moment the attack began. Angela had to get out of the house, carry a toddler to a neighbor and make the call before the clock started.

The incident form and two pages of the dispatch printout are reproduced as scans on the Unforgotten case page.

Nearly two hours outside

The first unit arrived at 12:49:23 a.m., and a second unit nine seconds later. Officers did not go straight in. The printout logs a tactical team callout at 1:24 a.m. Its first note reporting a man down is timestamped 2:30:09 a.m., 100 minutes and 46 seconds after the first arrival. A note about a child coming out follows at 2:31:31 a.m. The first SBI agent is logged on scene at 4:40:30 a.m.

Lawson told WBTV that SWAT teams surrounded the house for nearly two hours because nobody knew whether the intruder was still inside. The Unforgotten site says officers waited because of fears of a hostage situation. Both explanations come from accounts. The published dispatch pages do not record the commanders’ reasoning.

Readers often ask whether going in sooner would have saved Matt. The public record cannot answer that. The autopsy does not state a time of death, and the dispatch notes record when entries were typed, not the exact moment officers crossed the threshold.

For a visual account from the period, see David Whisenant’s first WBTV report and scene photograph.