A little over four years ago, a small home in Hildebran on Curley’s Fish Camp Road was surrounded by Burke Sheriff’s Office deputies, North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) investigators, and personnel from Catawba County, digging around the property as they executed a search warrant. Investigators found suspected human remains during the search.
When Tosha Lee Lewis, 36, of Hickory, was led into the courtroom on July 27 on her first set of conspiracy and murder charges, her contorted, crying face gave the impression of someone caught up in an unfortunate misunderstanding.
Despite the packed courtroom on the morning of July 30, the sound of jangling chains echoed clearly down the halls and through the closed doors as two people charged with the murder of a Morganton couple were led in to face the judge.
In the early hours of Monday morning, around 3:17 a.m., the Burke County Sheriff’s Office responded to a suspicious death on Barus Pond Loop in Valdese.
On the morning of June 9, detention officers and medical personnel at the Burke County Jail initiated life-saving measures on an unresponsive inmate that was found in his cell around 5:30 a.m.
Frank Wayne Campbell, 67, of Morganton, avoided a total maximum sentence of 272 months, or about 22 years and eight months, of incarceration by pleading guilty to two counts of felony second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor on Tuesday.
A grand jury indicted two Burke County men, Joshua Adam Bullard, 29, of Morganton, and former Valdese Elementary School teacher Michael John Daigler, 63, of Connelly Springs, on felony sex offense charges against children on Monday.
On January 18, detention staff found Teddy Justin Rathbone, 35, unresponsive in his cell at the Burke County Jail when another inmate alerted the officers.
On Thursday, Feb. 5, U.S. Marshals searching for Joel Scott Wimbish, Jr., 44, on charges from the Statesville Police Department, discovered he was staying at a residence in Hildebran. Following several hours of negotiation, officers using a drone found him dead inside the home.
