THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER, Part 2 of 2

When Ralph Harris, a 17-year-old Charlotte boy, told me that THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER had threatened his life –“Ralph Harris, I’m going to kill you.” — he laughed. Not a big laugh, but a laugh all the same. That was worrisome.  Who laughs about someone threatening to kill them?

I was a reporter for The Charlotte News and I had been assigned to find Ralph Harris and write a story, on deadline, about what should have been a frightening phone call.

I asked him where he was when the strangler called and he said he was working at a mom and pop store he owned on Graham Street. And I said, “Ralph, you’re not but 17 years old.”
And he said, well, he and his father owned it. That was also worrisome.

I asked him what he was going to do when we finished talking and he said he was going to “hail a cab” and go home.

I knew Graham Street. My Dad owned a sweat shop on Graham Street, close to the stadium built years later for the Carolina Panthers football team.   I had worked for my Dad in the summers when I was in junior high and high school — and I didn’t think Ralph Harris could have hailed a cab on Graham Street if he had stood on the curb all day.

Three red flags.

I knew that boy wasn’t telling the truth.  But I also knew it was 12:15 p.m. and deadline was only 15 minutes away.   Besides, what did it matter what I thought I knew?  The truth was never going to come out.

Only two people knew for sure what had or hadn’t happened and neither one of them were ever going to say. THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER knew, but he wasn’t going to say. And the boy knew, but he wasn’t going to say either. If he admitted he had lied he could be charged with making a false police report.

So I began to write:

“‘Ralph Harris, I’m going to kill you.'”

“That’s what THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER told a 17-year-old Charlotte boy …”

Bla, bla, bla.

I met deadline, accepted pats on the back  for a job well done, and went to lunch with Darrell Sifford, the managing editor.

Paperboys used to hawk paper on street corners.
Paperboys used to hawk paper on street corners.

As we walked back to the office I heard a paperboy on the corner of Trade and Stonewall Streets, next to our building, hawking my story to passersby. In a singsong chant he shouted:  “Gaffney Strangler Threatens Charlotte Boy!  Read all about it!”

They don’t hawk papers on the street anymore, haven’t for decades.   I loved hearing paperboys shouting the news of the day, especially when they were shouting about a story I had written.

Anyway, the M.E. and I turned in the front door of the building, crossed the little lobby in two steps, and pushed the elevator button. The door opened and a couple of our reporters got off.  One of ’em said, “Did you hear the latest on THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER story?

I wanted to say, “Hear it? My dear boy, I wrote it.” But I restrained myself. Instead, I said, “No, what happened?”

And he said, “The boy took it all back.”

“What!” I said.

“The boy took it all back,” he repeated.

I asked what had happened.

He said the TV reporters found Ralph Harris after I had filed my story  and were interviewing him when his Dad walked in, saw the cameras, and asked, “What’s going on?”
A TV guy said, “Haven’t you heard? Your boy has been threatened by THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER.”
And his Dad said, “My boy is psycho.”

And the boy said, “That’s right. I’m psycho.”

After that I gave some thought to calling that boy myself and saying, “Ralph Harris, I’m going to kill you.”

Postscript: THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER was captured days later, tried, convicted and given four life sentences.  He was stabbed to death in prison in 1972.

NOTE: That was the last quote lead I ever wrote.   Ralph Harris cured me.  He also changed the way I reported. From that story on, if I thought someone had lied to me I tried my best to prove it.

Coming Monday: “Good Luck”

 

 

THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER, Part 1 of 2

Fifty years ago there was a crazy man in Gaffney, S.C., who kidnapped and murdered four females, two women and two teenage girls, one from a school bus stop in front of her house.  This is not that story, this is a story about that story.

Newspapers called him “THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER” and my editors just couldn’t get enough of it.  For several weeks THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER story dominated the front page of my newspaper.

The strangler story was made to order story for afternoon newspapers like The Charlotte News, where I worked as a reporter, because new developments were happening on “our time” — on the p.m. cycle. We were thumping our morning competitor, The Charlotte Observer.  The News, which didn’t normally send reporters on out of town assignments, sent our ace 55 miles down I-85 to cover THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER.

I  had nothing to do with the strangler story, not until late one morning when I overheard someone on the City Desk say a 17-year-old Charlotte boy had told Charlotte police that he had been threatened by THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER. 

I sat near the City Desk and I always had my ears on, listening for stories the city editor or his assistant were about to assign. If I liked the assignment I’d hold my hand up, so to speak, and if I didn’t I’d go to the Men’s Room and hide out until I figured the coast was clear. This time I didn’t do either.  I didn’t like that lead –I didn’t believe it — and I didn’t think anyone would have to chase it because it just didn’t make sense. 

In the first place the strangler wasn’t killing people in Charlotte, he was killing people in Gaffney, S.C.  In the second place, he hadn’t attacked any boys, he attacked women and girls.  In the third place, he didn’t call people up on the phone and scare ’em — he snatched them off the street and strangled them.

Darrell Sifford
Darrell Sifford

I didn’t think we’d go after the Charlotte-Boy-Threatened story, but I was wrong.  Darrell Sifford, the managing editor,  called me and the cop shop reporter over to his desk and told us to find the boy and do a piece for the final edition.

The News prided itself on being a local newspaper.  Editors would throw out important national and international news to make room for a so-so story with a local angle. And Charlotte-Boy-Threatened was too good to pass up, even if it did sound goofy.

The other reporter and I didn’t have much time. It was already quarter to 12 and the deadline was 12:30 p.m. Both of us got on the phone and went looking for the boy.  Unfortunately, I found him.  It was already a few minutes past noon and I had no time to waste.

“Is your name Ralph Harris,*” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Did you tell the Charlotte police  that THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER called you on the telephone and threatened your life?”

“Yes,” he said.

“What, exactly, did THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER say?”

“Ralph Harris, I’m going to kill you,” the boy said.

And then Ralph Harris laughed. 

*Ralph Harris was not his real name, but that’s the only thing I made up about this story.

Continued tomorrow.