Category: My Favorites

The Unlucky Forger

When I was an investigative reporter for The News & Observer inmates wrote to me every once in a while saying they were innocent  — and asking me to prove it.   

I was near the end of another help-me-I’m-innocent letter when, almost as an afterthought, the inmate switched subjects and told me about a failed escape attempt that he thought was funny.

barsHe said a man serving time for forgery had tricked the N.C. Department of Correction into releasing another inmate who was serving a life sentence for burglary. But when the forger tried to trick DOC into releasing him, he got caught.

Funny, huh.

I didn’t think so, I thought it was interesting.  I called the DOC records office and asked where the lifer was being held. He wasn’t. I was told that he had been released.

I made more inquiries and here’s what I learned:

The forged paper ordering DOC to release the lifer arrived in the mail, but it wasn’t embossed with the seal of the Clerk of Court of the county where he had been convicted. The forger didn’t have the embossing stamp, or the tools to fake it. But, it turned out, that didn’t matter. DOC sent the paperwork back  to the Clerk of Court along with a note saying someone had forgotten to emboss it. The seal was quickly affixed, the paper was returned, and the lifer was released.

But that’s only part of the story, and not the best part, either.

The forger had been convicted in a different county and he didn’t have that Clerk of Court’s seal either.  When the forged release paper arrived at DOC a paper shuffler noticed that the seal was missing, returned it to the county where the forger had been convicted, and reminded the clerk responsible for that apparent oversight that she must affix the seal of her office.

But she didn’t — she knew immediately that the release paper was a forgery.

How?

She was left handed.  She made her check marks backwards. The check marks on the release paper had been made by a right handed person.

Coming Friday: Never Again!

The Ring

I had only been on the Appalachian Trail for 28 days, attempting to hike from Georgia to Maine, when I decided to go home and see a doctor.  

I thought I had a hernia.  Turns out, I was right.

Dr. Christopher Kenney, a surgeon, told me I had two choices: undergo an operation the following week and delay my hike a total of seven weeks or put on a girdle and go to Maine.  I put on a girdle, a six-inch wide elastic band around my gut, and returned to the trail on March 21, 2015, seven days behind.

That's me with the Hiking Vikings on June 11, 2019
That’s me with the Hiking Vikings on June 11, 2015, near New Hanover, N.H.

Friends I had been hiking with, including the Hiking Vikings, were long gone, more than 100 miles ahead of me.  But Viking got shin splints and he and his hiking partner, Sharon McCray, had to slow down. From entries they made in trail journals at various shelters I could see that I was reeling them in — I gained four days in the first two weeks.

And then Nate got well and I was barely able to keep up.  I was still two and a half days behind when I got a text from Sharon, on April 12, asking for a favor. Nate had left it hanging on a nail at Pickle Branch Shelter. She asked me to check when I passed by and get the ring if it was still there.  I said I would and, much to my surprise, it was.

Meantime, Nate had asked Sharon to marry him, and she had said Yes! They sent me a video of that moment, made at McAfee Knob, the most iconic overlook on entire A.T.

I texted Sharon and asked if the ring I had found was “a ring” or “the ring.” She replied that it was “a ring” but, she said, it had a story.

I was still two days behind when the trail entered the Shenandoah National Park, in northern Virginia.  The Shenandoah is easy trail compared to the rest of the A.T. so I laid my ears back and went all out to catch them. In four days I hiked 106 miles and, after dark on a cold, rainy, Saturday night,  April 25, five weeks after I returned to the trail, I caught them at Tom Floyd Shelter.

I returned the ring, and Nate told me the story.

He said he believed in asking a woman’s father for his blessing before asking his daughter for her hand in marriage. But Sharon’s father was dead. So, Nate said, he talked to Sharon’s father in his thoughts, and asked for his blessing.

The Vikings were married on a hill top 10 days after they completed their hike.
The Hiking Vikings were married  10 days after they completed their hike.

That’s when he found the ring, almost completely covered in dirt, barely visible. It was, to him, her father’s answer: “Yes.”

Postscript: Nate and Sharon completed their hike of the A.T. on July 12, 2015, and were married 10 days later.  The Ring is Nate’s wedding band.   They now have three boys.

I completed my hike on July 14, 2015, and underwent surgery on Aug. 10.

Coming Monday: The Unlucky Forger