Unsolved murders in 1971 in North Carolina
On February 12, 1971, Patricia Ann Mann, age 19 and Jesse Allen McBane, age 20, were found brutally murdered in the woods of Orange County, North Carolina. The murders, known as "The Valentine's Day Murders", have to this day never been solved. Police have permanently reopened the investigation since 2011, and have requested in recent years for the public to come forward with any and all needed information.
Victims.
Patricia Ann Mann, the youngest of four children, was a nursing student from Sanford, doing her residential training at Watts Hospital in Durham. Jesse Allen McBane was a North Carolina State University athletic student from Pittsboro in his freshman year. McBane's class voted him "Most Likely to Succeed". The couple started dating in high school, eventually getting engaged in the weeks before the murders.
Murder.
On February 12, 1971, Mann and McBane left a Valentine's Day dance they attended together at Watts Hospital. Mann, accompanied by McBane, signed out of her dorm and planned to return by the 1am curfew. Their families and Mann's roommates went to police when they didn't return that night. On February 16, McBane's friend found his brother Marty's car the couple left in at a lover's lane at Wayside Place. The car was locked, and it appeared to be wiped of fingerprints. Two coats and Mann's folded pantyhose were found inside the car.
On February 24, a surveyor in Duke Woods, three miles away from the lane, found Mann and McBane dead, tied to a tree and covered in leaves and debris. Their causes of death were determined to be asphyxiation, from ropes, which were even then still tied to both of them, being repeatedly tightened and released around each of their necks. Mud on their shoes indicated they were alive for the extent of the violence, which was estimated to have lasted some hours before the couple died. Examinations also revealed that had multiple stab wounds to their chests, which were postmortem, and Mann's liver was ruptured from what was determined to be a punch to her stomach.
Investigation and legacy.
Sgt. Tim Bowers of the Durham Police Department was first assigned the investigation, shortly after his promotion. He solicited New York criminal psychologist Dr. James Brussel to create a profile of the killer. Multiple agencies became involved in the case, including the Orange County Sheriff's Office, Durham Sheriff's Office, The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, and the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles. There's an agreement the killer(s) met Mann and McBane before the murders, let alone the killings were planned and the killer was familiar with the location. The case went cold in part to difficulties and apprehension between different departments' and offices' investigations, as well as struggles to narrow in on suspects.
For a while after that, locals avoided the woods where Mann and McBane were found, preventing people they knew from going into the woods, such as their children when they wanted to play, out of the fear they would also be harmed. In the following year of 1972, as would later be publicized, another couple was attacked by a gunman who tried to kidnap them Duke Forest by forcing them into the trunk of his car. The man fought the attacker, who pistol-whipped him violently enough the victim was left with lasting nerve damage. The couple nevertheless escaped, and the gunman fled. The case was assigned to a now-retired State Bureau agent, who would provide the case file and other evidence to later investigations, including a composite sketch of the suspect. Then in 1995, anonymous called confessed to the murders to Mann's and McBane's families. The call was traced to have been placed a mile from where the couple was found dead.
In 2011, Mann's cousin, Carolyn Spivey, who married McBane's best friend David by then, called to ask if there were any updates. This was around the same time Major Tim Horne of the Orange County Sheriff's Office found discarded evidence when Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass was planning a renovation at the local jail. The case has since been reopened, Horne and Sheriff's Office Investigator Dawn Hunter acting as the leading investigators of the case. Horne ensured his involvement by extending his retirement to the end of 2018 to provide attention and effort to the investigation. The department tried to use M-VAC System technology, having one of only a hundred machines in existence and forty in the nation alone, to collect DNA from the ropes and other evidence. No viable samples for testing against suspects were recovered. Nevertheless, the investigators have gotten calls offering other agencies' assistance and other technology for evidence collection, including from the Texas Rangers, Homeland Security, and law enforcement in the Netherlands and Australia.
In 2018, writer and filmmaker Eryk Pruitt and journalist Drew Adamack collaborated to release the podcast "The Long Dance" on June 30, which focuses on the lives of Mann and McBane, as well as the timelines and investigations surrounding their murders. Horne communicated with Pruitt and Adamack within the year and a half the podcast was being developed, and not only shared each other information the other side was missing, but they also focused in on the same suspects. Pruitt has also released a thriller novel, "Something Bad Wrong", which is a fictionalized story inspired by the murders of Mann and McBane, as well as Pruitt's experiences with consulting with law enforcement on the case and collaborating with the investigation.
A doctor employed at Watts Hospital at the time of the murders, whose name has not been released, has been recently confirmed to be considered a person of interest, the only living out of three prime suspects. His attorney spoke for him in his decline to provide a DNA sample. No arrests have yet been made. Police in Orange County Sheriff's Office are still investigating the case and are asking the public for assistance.
References.
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