News

Timeline of manhunt for Michael Stroupe

By Bill Moss, Published: August 22, 2017

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.