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Warrants detail intensity of manhunt, murder probe

Henderson County News

Timeline of manhunt for Michael Stroupe

Here is a timeline of the manhunt for Phillip Michael Stroupe II, the kidnapping and murder of Thomas A. “Tommy” Bryson, the capture of Stroupe and the investigation by law officers. Phillip Michael Stroupe II is referred to as Michael Stroupe, which is what family call him. His father is referred to as Phillip Stroupe. • Saturday, July 22: After Henderson County sheriff’s office issues a BOLO (be on the lookout) for a silver SUV driven by a wanted fugitive, Transylvania County Deputy Nathan Whitmire spots the vehicle in Pisgah National Forest initiates a traffic stop. Phillip Michael Stroupe II speeds away on Avery Creek Road until he spotted a man on a mountain bike. Stroupe jumps out of the SUV, steals a bike at gunpoint, throws the bike in the back of the SUV and drives off. The pursuit continues for several miles until Avery Creek Road narrows and turns to gravel. Stroupe slides the SUV sideways —blocking the road — hops on the mountain bike and rides into the forest. Whitmire has to push the SUV out of the way before he can continue the pursuit. By then Stroupe has vanished into the woods. Multiple agencies organize a search that closes much of Pisgah National Forest. • July 22: Henderson County SWAT team members spot a set of footprints and bicycle tire treads where Stroupe was last seen. The SWAT team members spot another set of shoeprints around a barn and determine they’re a match for the ones Stroupe left at the start of his escape on foot. Using K9s and visually identifying the shoeprints, they track him along the bank of the Mills River, losing the trail near Village Drive and South Mills River Road. • July 22: A woman driving on Yellow Gap Road sees Stroupe, who is sitting on a rock with his hand behind his back. He signals her to stop. She keeps driving and calls law enforcement. • 8:15 a.m. Sunday, July 23: Stroupe comes across a man fishing at a stream near Wolf Den Campground. Stroupe asks him a cigarette. The fisherman tells Stroupe he knows who he is. Stroupe lifts his shirt to reveal a revolver and asks the fisherman to give him a ride out of the forest. Before they reach the man’s campsite, Stroupe turns around and walks off. • Monday, July 24: Stroupe’s aunt, Norma Stroupe Goforth, 62, of Leicester, is arrested inside the search perimeter and charged with a misdemeanor count of resisting, obstructing and delaying of a public officer. Deputies arrested her after disregarded “a lawful order and multiple warnings” to leave the search area.• 2 a.m. Tuesday, July 25, and 7:45 a.m. Wednesday, July 26: Law officers spot Stroupe’s father, 65-year-old Phillip Michael Stroupe, on the Blue Ridge Parkway. During the manhunt for Michael Stroupe, law officers observed the father “flashing his headlights and honking his horn” in an apparent effort to give his son “a landmark to travel to” and escape capture. “It was evident … that Phillip had been actively searching” for his son. The father was known by Buncombe County investigators “to pick up Stroupe and harbor him when he was in trouble.” On July 25 Michael Stroupe turned 39 years old. • 8:35 a.m. July 26: Thomas Bryson, 68, leaves his home at 146 Wolf Pack Trail to pick up his sister and take her to a medical appointment. When Bryson fails to show up, family members become concerned — knowing that not keeping an appointment would be “extremely out of character” for Bryson. They file a missing person report. • 8:41 a.m. Wednesday, July 26: Surveillance video from the Valley Ag store on N.C. 280 shows Bryson’s 2007 Honda Ridgeline making a left turn from South Mills River Road onto on N.C. 280 toward Asheville. Four minutes later, according to Verizon Wireless, Bryson’s cell phone is powered off. The last ping was traced to the Grace Community Church area on N.C. 280 at Cardinal Road. • Wednesday, July 26: Superior Court Judge Jeff Hunt grants a request by the SBI to track the senior Stroupe’s cell phone. • 1 p.m. Wednesday, July 26: Armed with a court order allowing a GPS tracking device on the senior Stroupe’s 2010 Ford Focus, Henderson County Sheriff’s Detective Michael Lolley calls Phillip Stroupe and asks to “speak with him about the sightings and see if he may know any places where his son may try … to hide in that area.” Stroupe agrees to meet at Starbucks at the Asheville Mall. After Lolley and two other deputies watch Stroupe park and walk in to the Starbucks, Lolley attaches the tracker to Stroupe’s vehicle. The deputies then walk into the coffee shop and meet with Stroupe, who denies having had any contact with his son. • Wednesday, July 26: Stroupe drives west to Pigeon Forge, Sevierville and the Johnson City in East Tennessee. Three days later, investigators locate surveillance video from a Wal-Mart in Sevierville that shows Stroupe arriving at and leaving the store. • July 26: A tipster calls the Buncombe County sheriff’s office to say he was at Hawkins’ home that day and was “120 percent sure” that Stroupe was there, as was the Honda Ridgeline. The other people there were later identified as Jennifer Hawkins, her boyfriend, Frederick Badgero and her nephew Larry Hawkins III. Stroupe “kept asking (Hawkins III and Badgero) to follow him somewhere but he would not advise where they were going,” the tipster said. The caller saw Stroupe drive off in the Ridgeline, followed by the Hawkins in a 2016 Toyota Camry. Buncombe deputies later charge Jennifer Hawkins, Larry Hawkins III and Badgero with harboring Stroupe. In a search warrant application, Detective Lolley says the paint on the grass “is a possible match” for the black paint on the Ridgeline. • 11:47 p.m. Wednesday, July 26: SBI agents conducting surveillance near the senior Stroupe’s home spot Michael Stroupe driving the Ridgeline, trailed by the Camry owned by Jennifer Hawkins. The SBI agents pursue Stroupe, who speeds away and eludes the officers until stop sticks disable the vehicle on U.S. 70 in Marion. Stroupe jumps and runs and officers chase him on foot. They catch him near a mobile home park and later recover Stroupe’s silver .38-caliber Smith & Wesson Special. • Thursday, July 27: Interviewed by SBI agent Casey Drake and Buncombe County sheriff’s Capt. John Elkins, Stroupe confesses to stealing Bryson’s vehicle when the victim was at his mailbox. He claims to have not seen him since. • Thursday, July 27: Lolley and two other Buncombe detectives knock on the door of Jennifer Hawkins’ doublewide mobile home at 4 Rocky Lane, in Barnardsville. Her nephew, Larry Hawkins III, claims not to know who lives there and says he doesn’t Michael Stroupe is. While that interview is going on, two detectives walking along the driveway spot black paint on the grass. When Lolley asks Larry Hawkins to look at the grass, Hawkins said “he had no idea what was on the ground. I then asked him if he had ever seen black grass before, and he stated, no, he had not, and that be believed that the substance was in fact paint. • Friday, July 28: Superior Court Judge Marvin Pope of Buncombe County grants a search warrant for the home of Jennifer Hawkins’ home. • Saturday, July 29: In “post-Miranda admissions” to investigators in Marion, Stroupe tells interrogators that the murder of Bryson “was not ‘premeditated’ and demanded a ‘deal with all the district attorneys.’” • Saturday, July 29: Phillip Stroupe comes to the Marion County jail to visit his son. During a recorded telephone conversation between a glass partition, Stroupe asks his father to retrieve and hide Bryson’s body. Aware of the conversation and apparent attempt by Stroupe to enlist his father to hide the body, deputies search Stroupe’s cell for a map or notes he may have shown to his father. They find nothing. “When the jail staff attempted to look at Phillip Michael Stroupe’s hands, he resisted and had to be restrained.” They see that Stroupe had obliterated the writing on his hand. They can make out the word “exit … on the side of his palm.” They photograph his smeared word. • Saturday, July 29: Phillip Stroupe makes numerous calls and sends text messages to others, including Michael’s mother, Patricia Fender. • Sunday, July 30: Henderson County Detective Aaron Lisenbee obtains a warrant charging Phillip Stroupe with accessory after the fact of first-degree kidnapping. Lisenbee and SBI agent Chuck Vines arrange to meet Phillip Stroupe at a picnic area near Stroupe’s house in Burnsville. Stroupe admits that his son “was asking him to further conceal Thomas Bryson’s body and provided directions that were written on his hand and a small piece of paper.” Stroupe claimed he couldn’t read the writing “even though he verbally acknowledged on the visitation recordings that he did.” The officers arrest Stroupe on the accessory charge and seize his cell phone. • Sunday night, July 30: Searchers find Bryson’s body in a cornfield off Glenbridge Road Southeast in Arden. • Monday, July 31: Jennifer Hawkins, 40, Frederick Aurther Badgero Jr., 45, and Larry Jay Hawkins III, 23, all of 4 Rocky Lane, Barnardsville, are charged with harboring an escapee and accessory after the fact of first-degree murder. They remain jailed in Buncombe County under $200,000 bond. Phillip Stroupe is charged with accessory after the fact of first-degree murder. • July 31: An autopsy shows Bryson died of a gunshot wound to the face and that a bullet remained in his skull. Phillip Michael Stroupe is charged with first-degree murder. He also faces charges in Henderson County, of first-degree kidnapping and motor vehicle theft; in Transylvania County, of possession of a firearm by a felon, driving on an unopened road, reckless driving to endanger the public, armed robbery and fleeing to elude arrest; and in McDowell County, for possession of methamphetamine, fleeing to elude arrest, failing to stop for flashing red lights, reckless driving to endanger the public, resisting a public officer and possession of a firearm by a felon. • Aug. 1: During a first appearance, a judge appoints Henderson County Public Defender Paul Welch to represent Stroupe in the capital murder case. • Aug. 3: Fire believed to be arson destroys the Barnardsville home of Jennifer Hawkins, her nephew and boyfriend — the three people charged with harboring Michael Stroupe. The fire is still under investigation. • Aug. 21: Grand jury indicts Michael Stroupe for first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and armed robbery and indicts Phillip Stroupe for accessory after the fact to first-degree murder. Sources: Search warrant applications filed in Henderson County for permission to search Thomas Bryson’s vehicle and the home of Jennifer Hawkins and to obtain a DNA sample from Michael Stroupe; inventory of evidence listed in returned search warrants; arrest warrants; N.C. Department of Correction records, Henderson County court records, Henderson County sheriff’s office news releases, interviews with law enforcement agencies.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

GRAND JURY INDICTS STROUPE FOR MURDER

A Henderson County grand jury indicted Phillip Michael Stroupe II for first degree murder on Monday in the death of Thomas Andrew Bryson, 68, of Mills River on July 26, District Attorney Greg Newman announced. Stroupe, 39, was also indicted on charges of robbery with a Dangerous Weapon and First Degree Kidnapping. His father, Phillip Michael Stroupe, Sr., was indicted on a charge of Accessory After the Fact to First Degree Murder and remains in the Henderson County Jail on a $500,000 bond. Both men are scheduled to appear in Superior Court in Hendersonville on Monday, Oct. 9. They will be advised of these charges and their attorney status will also be discussed." "This is the first step of a lengthy process," Newman said. "I met with Mrs. Bryson and one of her sons and explained to them that the legal process requires endurance and we have a considerable amount of work ahead of us just to get this case to trial. On the 9th of October, we hope to hold a conference with Judge Powell whereby I will announce the grounds that I believe exist to pursue the death penalty upon a conviction of the murder charge. We will also discuss the defendant’s legal representation. North Carolina law permits two court appointed lawyers in a case where a crime is punishable by death.” Mr. Newman added: “ The investigation in this case is still being conducted. Though Stroupe II is charged, he is not yet convicted. There remains much to be done in bringing him to justice. Members of my office, in conjunction with numerous sheriff’s departments and the NC State Bureau of Investigation, continue to diligently work to obtain evidence in these cases.” In addition to the newly indicted charges in Henderson County, Stroupe II faces multiple felony charges in Transylvania, Madison, Yancey and McDowell counties.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Moon turns day into night

ROSMAN — The moon blocked the sun on Monday afternoon, briefly turning day into night, in an astronomical show that was totality awesome.Hundreds of people who gathered at Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute did some wishing, some groaning and some cheering as intermittent cloud cover veiled the once-in-a-life time view. But in the end everyone got a good look at the moon entering the sun’s path and then emerging out the other side.“Pretty spectacular,” said Anthony Love, a research associate at PARI and geologist from Appalachian State University. “As somebody who studies meteorites and other planets for a living, it’s amazing to see.”The event at PARI, which included presentations on astronomy and eclipse history and shuttle ride to the mountaintop Optical Ridge for the celestial show, was a gift to the skywatchers from Don Cline, the owner of PARI.“His mission is to make accessible to the masses, and I can’t imagine a better way to do that than what he’s put together today.”Built in the early 1960s as NASA’s east coast satellite tracking station, the facility was turned over to the Department of Defense in 1981 and was used to collect sensitive satellite tracking before closing in 1994. In 1998 Don Cline and his wife, Jo, bought the satellite station. Since that time the Clines and donors have poured more than $25 million into improvements in the science education center.Cline provided both the play-by-play and color commentary of the event, repeatedly reminding guests not to look at the sun without protective eyewear, explaining wind direction and cloud movement and pointing out a blimp and hot air balloon that were conducting scientific experiments.The skies grew cloudy after the eclipse started. A cloud cover as the sun emerged from the moon’s shadow made for a good photo opp.The sky was not pitch black during 100 seconds of totality but dark like late dusk. The wind came up and it got cooler for the 100-second duration of the blackout.“We captured a lot of data. We’ll have to look at and we’ll be publishing it and it will be on our website,” Cline said. “As you can see, it makes for some good photographs with the clouds. I’m glad to share this facility and to have a place for people to come see this — people of all ages." He made a pitch for science fans to help fund the institute. "A lot of people think we’re funded by the government because they were for so long," he said.“PARI is the only place in the world where the total eclipse will occur directly over some of the most advanced astronomical equipment in the world: two 26-meter radio telescopes, a 4.6-meter radio telescope and a 12-meter radio telescope,” the organization said. “Because of this unique convergence, PARI will be able to conduct scientific study of a total eclipse that has never before been possible.”   Read Story »

Flat Rock News

Flat Rock opens charging station for E-vehicles

FLAT ROCK — Electric car drivers now have a new convenient charging station in the Village of Flat Rock. Funded by Duke Energy, the two EV stations are among more than 200 the utility is installing in partnerships with cities and towns that have public space available. The charging stations are in the Village Hall parking lot. "We expect our out-of-town visitors and local residents to take advantage of the new stations," Mayor Bob Staton said. "Not only will they be available 24-7 but they're easy to use." Drivers should register at chargepoint.com to open an account. A $10,000 grant from Duke covered most of the cost of the installation, which was coordinated by Vice Mayor Nick Weedman. According to Advanced Energy, a nonprofit group, there are about 7,330 electric vehicles and 938 public charging ports in North Carolina. "Adoption of EVs depends on a robust infrastructure for consumers," Duke President David Fountain said in a statement.     Read Story »

Henderson County News

E DAY: Send us your eclipse pix and stories

The Hendersonville Lightning is covering the eclipse and we bet lots of you are too. Be a part of our coverage by sending us photos and short accounts of what you saw, where you were, what was amazing, funny or inconvenient. We're interested not only in the astronomical event but how you were able to get to your watching place, what were the crowds like, what was your reaction. Send photos and words to news@hendersonvillelightning.com. Please put eclipse in the subject line. We'll feature the best photos and stories in this week's print issue and on Hendersonvillelightning.com. Thanks in advance for joining the volunteer reporting corps of the Lightning!   Read Story »

Henderson County News

KnollsCam: Wildlife camera films spotted Bambis

Thomas Brass's KnollsCam on top of Haywood Knolls caught footage of some beautiful spotted fawns. Click here to check it out.     Read Story »

Laurel Park News

Man with knife robs Wells Fargo bank in Laurel Park

LAUREL PARK — Laurel Park police, with assistance from the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office and Hendersonville Police Department, are investigating a robbery of Wells Fargo Bank in Laurel Park on Friday. The bank robbery occurred at approximately 12:30 p.m. when a man dressed in black entered the bank and jumped over the teller counter entrance. He then approached one of the tellers, armed with a knife and demanded money. The suspect exited the bank and ran away from the business center.The suspect is a male, with a medium build wearing all black attire with tennis shoes. Anyone with information was asked to contact the Laurel Park Police Department at 828-692-9399 or CrimeStoppers at 828-697-STOP (7867).   Read Story »

Henderson County News

County has a mixed record of honoring Confederacy

Unlike many county seats in the South, Hendersonville does not have a Confederate monument that dominates its courthouse square. Few Southern towns have banished their Robert E. Lee memorial to a backyard corner of the public space, as Henderson County did seven years ago. And there can’t be many that display a monument to Union soldiers alongside one honoring the boys in gray.   Read Story »

North Carolina News

McGrady to co-chair pollution investigation

State Rep. Chuck McGrady, the go-to specialist on environmental legislation in the state House, has been appointed to co-chair of a commission that will look into an industrial plant's discharge of the chemical GenX into the Cape Fear River in Bladen County.   Read Story »

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