Triple murder solved after 50 years with clue from suspect's son, authorities say
ABC News
A 50-year-old triple homicide case has finally been closed, after a suspect's son provided clues that led investigators to the so-called Dixie Mafia.
A 50-year-old triple homicide case has finally been closed, after a suspect's son provided clues that led investigators to the so-called Dixie Mafia, authorities said.
On Feb. 3, 1972, a family of three was found murdered in their home in Boone, North Carolina, during a snowstorm. Bryce Durham, 51, his wife, Virginia, 44, and their 18-year-old son, Bobby, had been strangled to death. The couple's son-in-law, Troy Hall, found the family in their bathroom after he and his wife, Ginny, went to check on them.
The Watauga County Sheriff's Office had been unable to solve the brutal murders for decades -- until a break came in 2019. Investigators received a "very important" tip from Georgia authorities, Watauga County Sheriff Len Hagaman said in a statement.
The White County Sheriff's Office in Georgia had inadvertently come across information that potentially tied the murders to four men -- Billy Sunday Birt, Billy Wayne Davis, Bobby Gene Gaddis and Charles David Reed -- who authorities said were part of a Georgia-based network known as the Dixie Mafia. The group was purported to have committed dozens of violent crimes across the Southeast in the 1960s and 1970s.
