When unsolved cases “go cold” it doesn’t always mean they are forgotten by the local law enforcement officers who have worked and still work those cases, but it means there are no leads left to follow.
What it also sometimes means is that the public forgets those cases as well, and so local police and sheriffs departments try to bring them back to memory every so often in the hopes that some small piece of evidence, some clue, some eyewitness account will come to light and lead to some sort of closure for a victim’s family and community.
The Iredell Free News published such an attempt on behalf of Statesville police this morning about a murder that probably isn’t on the local radar and might not be remembered very well by those who heard about it when it happened.
On the morning of January 5th, 1992 in her small home at 538 Bond street in Statesville, NC, Ethel Louise Weaver was found dead by her nephew Elnozo White.
It was Mrs. Weaver’s birthday, but she had not lived to see it. Sometime during the previous night a person or persons gained entry into Mrs. Weaver’s home and brutally murdered her. The attacker(s) had plunged a knife into her multiple times before finally stabbing her in the throat, ending the 68 year old woman’s life. She would lay on the floor of her own bedroom in a pool of blood until the next morning when her nephew found her. A kerosene lamp she kept lit the previous night was still burning.
There had been no forced entry and her nephew had found her door unlocked (which her family said was unusual) so it’s possible Mrs. Weaver knew her assailant(s) or was convinced to let them in.
Mrs. Weaver’s purse and a small knife she kept for protection were both missing from the house, leading one to speculate she may have been killed with her own weapon and the killer(s) took it when they left.
Statesville PD admitted some DNA had been collected, but to date there have never been any matches to the sample they have.
The area where she once lived was not always thought of as a “rough neighborhood” according to an article from the November, 2019 Record & Landmark. When she first moved into the house ten years prior to her death, her neighbors had been other elderly citizens, but they had slowly found their way into nursing homes, and the area had changed. Bond Street has always been an odd place for houses. Even as far back as the 1950’s, the block was a peninsula of small single family homes surrounded by industrial buildings and yards. It still is today, though many of those industries are now out of business or shadows of their former selves.
And that is the width of breadth of what is publicly known of Mrs. Weaver’s murder.
But if you know something or have information which might lead to some closure for Mrs. Weaver’s family, contact the Statesville Police Department at 704-878-3515.
Mrs. Ethel Weaver would have been 100 years old tomorrow.
