from emergency call box EO8 next to Burgaw dormitory on the campus of N.C. State University. Such call boxes were spread strategically around the campus, mounted on poles topped by blue lights so that they could be easily spotted. None was more than a minute or two away from a patrolling campus police officer. A male, apparently young, was on the line, and dispatcher Barbara Dew had trouble understanding him. He sounded hysterical and he kept saying something about losing his keys and his parents being stabbed, and he needed to get to Washington, North Carolina. Dew asked his name, but all that she could understand was “Christopher.” She tried to calm him to learn more, but he grew even more hysterical.
“Just hold on,” she told him. “I’m sending an officer out.”
When call box EO8 came into sight, Lieutenant Teresa Crocker saw a young man dressed in shorts and T-shirt. His back rested against the pole on which the phone was mounted, his knees pulled up, his head on his knees. When she brought her red-and-gray campus security car to a stop beside the box, the young man leaped up and came to her car yelling. He was thin and of medium height, with a shock of dark hair and a wild look in his eyes, so agitated that she couldn’t make out what he was trying to tell her. “I couldn’t find my fucking car keys,” he kept saying. He also kept repeating something about his parents being beaten and stabbed. As he was flinging his arms and stalking back and forth, “ranting and raving,” as Lieutenant Crocker later described it, a second campus security car arrived, and Patrolman Michael Allen got out.
“What’s the trouble?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Crocker said in exasperation. “I can’t make it out. See if you can talk to him.”
Allen couldn’t get much more out of him, and he suggested that they take the young man to the Public Safety Office. Both officers were certain that the young man was either drunk or on drugs and thought that he might be hallucinating.
Melvin Hope always claimed that he was a bear to wake up, but he had no trouble stirring himself when the phone rang shortly before five and Michelle Sparrow told him there had been a murder in Smallwood. He pulled on blue jeans and moccasins and hurried out.
At forty-four, Hope no longer cut the same trim figure that he had when he first joined the marines at eighteen. His waistline had been creeping up on him, and his hairline had done something that marines didn’t do: retreat. Hope had served fifteen years in the marines, including two tours in Vietnam, before he left the Corps as a staff sergeant, due to problems with his first wife. He had joined the reserves to complete his military retirement and had become a police officer in Jacksonville, a town sixty miles to the south, on the edge of the sprawling marine base, Camp Lejeune. Eventually, he had grown weary of wrestling drunk marines and followed a friend to the Washington Police Department at the end of 1981. He had been made an investigator the following July and now was the department’s detective sergeant. A gruff man with a bushy mustache, seldom without a cigar between his teeth, Hope was filled with macho bluster and war stories, and others in the police department sometimes referred to him as their John Wayne.
Hope arrived at 110 Lawson Road to find his captain, Danny Boyd, had arrived before him and had already been upstairs to see the body.
“What happened?” Hope asked.
“We got a mess,” Boyd said, going on to explain the situation briefly. Hope went on up to see how big a mess for himself.
Whoever had set out to kill Lieth Von Stein had done a thorough and vicious job, Hope saw. The savagery of the attack was impressive.
Von Stein now lay on his back, his eyes swollen and closed, his neatly trimmed beard matted with blood. His pale legs, which looked almost too thin to support his thick, hairy body, were spread. His left hand was clenched, and his entire
“Just hold on,” she told him. “I’m sending an officer out.”
When call box EO8 came into sight, Lieutenant Teresa Crocker saw a young man dressed in shorts and T-shirt. His back rested against the pole on which the phone was mounted, his knees pulled up, his head on his knees. When she brought her red-and-gray campus security car to a stop beside the box, the young man leaped up and came to her car yelling. He was thin and of medium height, with a shock of dark hair and a wild look in his eyes, so agitated that she couldn’t make out what he was trying to tell her. “I couldn’t find my fucking car keys,” he kept saying. He also kept repeating something about his parents being beaten and stabbed. As he was flinging his arms and stalking back and forth, “ranting and raving,” as Lieutenant Crocker later described it, a second campus security car arrived, and Patrolman Michael Allen got out.
“What’s the trouble?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Crocker said in exasperation. “I can’t make it out. See if you can talk to him.”
Allen couldn’t get much more out of him, and he suggested that they take the young man to the Public Safety Office. Both officers were certain that the young man was either drunk or on drugs and thought that he might be hallucinating.
Melvin Hope always claimed that he was a bear to wake up, but he had no trouble stirring himself when the phone rang shortly before five and Michelle Sparrow told him there had been a murder in Smallwood. He pulled on blue jeans and moccasins and hurried out.
At forty-four, Hope no longer cut the same trim figure that he had when he first joined the marines at eighteen. His waistline had been creeping up on him, and his hairline had done something that marines didn’t do: retreat. Hope had served fifteen years in the marines, including two tours in Vietnam, before he left the Corps as a staff sergeant, due to problems with his first wife. He had joined the reserves to complete his military retirement and had become a police officer in Jacksonville, a town sixty miles to the south, on the edge of the sprawling marine base, Camp Lejeune. Eventually, he had grown weary of wrestling drunk marines and followed a friend to the Washington Police Department at the end of 1981. He had been made an investigator the following July and now was the department’s detective sergeant. A gruff man with a bushy mustache, seldom without a cigar between his teeth, Hope was filled with macho bluster and war stories, and others in the police department sometimes referred to him as their John Wayne.
Hope arrived at 110 Lawson Road to find his captain, Danny Boyd, had arrived before him and had already been upstairs to see the body.
“What happened?” Hope asked.
“We got a mess,” Boyd said, going on to explain the situation briefly. Hope went on up to see how big a mess for himself.
Whoever had set out to kill Lieth Von Stein had done a thorough and vicious job, Hope saw. The savagery of the attack was impressive.
Von Stein now lay on his back, his eyes swollen and closed, his neatly trimmed beard matted with blood. His pale legs, which looked almost too thin to support his thick, hairy body, were spread. His left hand was clenched, and his entire
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