Post by Graveyardbride on Sept 16, 2014 23:20:40 GMT -5
Murder of a Teenage Call Girl
Beth-Ellen Vinson, beauty queen and talented dancer, was born May 17, 1967, the daughter of Bill and Penny Vinson of Goldsboro, N.C. The Southern Wayne High School student loved Beatles music and John Lennon and idolized Marilyn Monroe, on whom she wanted to pattern her life. She told her mother she never wanted to grow old, preferring to burn brightly for a short time to slowly burning out. She had studied dance with Gregory Hines and Savion Glover in New York City and Hines told her she had great potential. A former dancing colleague, Marisol Litzinger, believed Beth-Ellen would likely have become a successful professional dancer. Her teenage years were a never-ending circle of dancing, recitals and parties, but inwardly, like her idol, Beth-Ellen was insecure. Mrs. Vinson recalls her daughter crying and at times feeling isolated from her friends, but it was the life she had chosen for herself.
By summer, she was openly defying her parents and had arranged with some of her new friends to move to Raleigh, where she believed she could quickly earn enough money to finance her way to New York City and life on Broadway. Her parents begged her to wait until she finished high school and even promised that if she graduated, they would set her up in an apartment in New York and support her until she caught her big break. But Beth-Ellen wanted to make her own rules and was tired of being held back. One Sunday morning in July 1994, she told her dad she was going outside to clean out her car and drove away. However, when she informed her friends she was on her way to Raleigh, they got cold feet, so Beth-Ellen, undeterred, drove the 60 miles to the state capital alone.
“Penny and I talked it over at length,” Bill Vinson recalled, “and we really, we came to the conclusion that the only way for her to come back and stay back is for her to come back and stay back. In other words, we could go get her and drag her back, but at the first opportunity we felt like she’d be gone again. We felt like this was a real maturing process; it’s something that she needed to go through, something that she needed to handle on her own. I wish many times I had gone and got her back now.”
In Raleigh, Beth-Ellen moved in with Rick Heath, step-uncle of a friend. Rick was a 21-year-old student at North Carolina State University, who had attended Southern Wayne High School. A serious relationship quickly developed and Rick was soon telling friends and family he had met his soul mate.
Beth-Ellen lied about her age and signed on with an escort service, vowing she would dance for customers and absolutely nothing else. She was a lovely young woman and believed she could earn enough money for her next big move in a matter of weeks, but her dreams were short-lived. She soon discovered the escort business wasn’t bringing in the money she had anticipated and even confided to a friend that one client had raped her. (Later, police were unable to confirm this alleged rape.)
Just six short weeks after arriving in Raleigh, the escort service called Beth-Ellen at 2 o’clock on the morning of Tuesday, August 16, 1994. She quickly dressed and left the apartment she shared with Rick on Avent Ferry Road near North Carolina State at approximately 2:30 to meet a client at the Innkeeper Motel on Capital Boulevard. Three hours later, police found her 1990 white Mazda 626 in front of a car dealership at 2501 Capital Boulevard. The driver’s door was open, the motor running and the radio blaring. One of her shoes was discovered on the floor on the driver’s side.
Seven days after her car was found, a factory manager discovered Beth-Ellen’s badly decomposed body just a half-mile from the car lot between two warehouses near Atlantic Avenue. She had been stabbed multiple times. According to police, someone physically forced her from her vehicle, drove her a little more than a half-mile to a secluded, wooded spot off Wicker Drive, stabbed her more than 15 times, covered her with cardboard and left her to die. Although the medical examiner could not say whether she was, or wasn’t, sexually assaulted, police did not believe she was. Additionally, she wasn’t carrying anything of real value, which ruled out robbery. Furthermore, had the motive been robbery, why would the man have bothered abducting the girl, driving her to a remote location and killing her when he could have simply grabbed her purse and forced her to remove her jewelry? Nonetheless, neither her purse nor the rings she was wearing has has turned up.
It took police several weeks to determine Beth-Ellen never made it to the Innkeeper Motel to meet her client. When initially questioned, the man in question, who had been in the midst of a 24-hour cycle of alcohol, drugs and prostitutes, could not recall if he met Beth-Ellen Vinson. However, no one saw her at the motel and because her car was discovered between Rick Heath’s apartment and Capital Boulevard, it stands to reason, she never arrived.
One of those questioned and the prime suspect in Beth-Ellen’s murder was, and remains, Rick Heath. He failed a polygraph examination administered by FBI Special Agent Mark Rozzi, but some investigators felt Heath’s emotions was the cause of this failure. “Yes, he failed a polygraph,” confirmed retired Raleigh police investigator John Lynch. “The emotions he was going through didn’t make him a good subject for a polygraph.” However, Rozzi insisted stress is factored in when administering a polygraph exam. The lead investigator on the case wanted Heath arrested, but the district attorney felt there wasn’t sufficient evidence to do so.
In October of 1994, a Raleigh newspaper received an anonymous letter concerning the case. The writer claimed Beth-Ellen was involved with people with “unique tastes” and she had allegedly attempted to blackmail members of a “sadomasochistic” group. The writer continued, saying the girl was earning $300-$500 per job without having to engage in sexual activity, but she was getting tired of the physical pain inflicted upon her body, and if she had threatened to blackmail these customers, they may have killed her to keep her from talking.
Eighteen months later, on May 9, 1996, investigators released additional information regarding Beth-Ellen’s possessions that remained missing, and requested assistance from the public. Among the missing items were three size 6 rings: a sterling silver Gorham band in the Chantilly pattern, a 14k gold ring with a garnet and two amethyst stones, and a silver-toned “mood ring.” Also missing was a 6" x 4½" cloth pull-string shoulder bag in burgundy, burnt-orange and brown with the woven figure of a cowboy on one side.
More than a decade has passed and Bill and Penny Vinson still do not know what happened to their daughter. They are also angry at her killer, angry at their willful daughter and angry at themselves. They wonder if they could have done anything to save Beth-Ellen. She was headstrong and when she ran away that July, they decided to allow her to learn for herself that life wasn't as easy as she believed. She was the product of an upper-middle-class upbringing, had never worked a day in her life, things had always been easy for her and she was in serious need of a reality check. Still, looking back, they are unsure if they would have done anything differently.Eighteen months later, on May 9, 1996, investigators released additional information regarding Beth-Ellen’s possessions that remained missing, and requested assistance from the public. Among the missing items were three size 6 rings: a sterling silver Gorham band in the Chantilly pattern, a 14k gold ring with a garnet and two amethyst stones, and a silver-toned “mood ring.” Also missing was a 6" x 4½" cloth pull-string shoulder bag in burgundy, burnt-orange and brown with the woven figure of a cowboy on one side.
Despite strong suspects at the outset, police are no closer to solving Beth-Ellen’s murder than the day her body was found. In the 20 years since, detectives have sifted through leads and rumors, but nothing has panned out. Different investigators who have worked the crime have advanced various theories about what might have happened. Some believe the young woman just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, while others believe she knew her killer and that killer was possibly her boyfriend.
Jerry Faulk, who has worked the case for the past five years, re-interviewing witnesses multiple times and following up on new leads, made it clear he’s open to all possibilities and no one person is a focus of the investigation. He believes someone knows something – even if they don’t realize it – that could help close the case. “There’s no doubt in my mind,” he said. “Beth-Ellen Vinson deserves justice and her family deserves some peace.”
Russell Vinson, Beth-Ellen’s uncle, said the family still struggles with the pain of their loss and living each day without her. “It’s been 20 years since we lost Beth-Ellen. That’s 20 years of birthdays, Christmases and family occasions without her presence,” he explained. Not a day goes by, he added, that her father doesn’t think about her and the pain has really affected her mother. “It’s certainly a heavy burden for them to live under. They certainly would like to see some information come forward in this case. We’re still optimistic something will come of this. I feel certain that someone out there knows something.”
Author: Graveyardbride.
Sources: WRAL News; The Context of Things; VICAP; and North Carolina Wanted.