What’s in the news: Murder in Pisgah National Forest, gangs in McDowell County, dangerous school buses and early Thanksgiving travel worries

The big news keeps coming this week. Let’s get to what we spotted on WLOSer news Tuesday night:

Someone murdered a hiker
Turns out that the dead body found Friday in the Pisgah National Forest was missing hiker Irene Bryant. She died from blunt force trauma to the head, police said, and the FBI is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading an arrest and conviction in the case.

You know the story – old couple goes for a hike in the woods, ends up dead. The body of the husband has yet to be found, and there’s no longer a search. But police say they have surveillance video of somebody using the couple’s ATM card at a machine in Tennessee. Sheraldo was on the story Tuesday.

WLOSer Carolyn Ryan was also on the story. She went back to the couple’s Henderson County neighborhood to talk to neighbors, who were stunned by the news. She said neighbors were left “scratching their heads” at why somebody would do this. Really? They were scratching their heads? Carolyn was live in the “news center,” which actually looked busy for once.

In other crime news…
The two Henderson County teens charged with killing an older woman and her son in Hendersonville over the weekend had their first court appearance in Pitt County on Tuesday. No word on when they’ll be brought back to the mountains to face justice… And at least one person who purchased a head stone from Moody funeral service received the stone, but several other people have not. Police are investigating.

Gangs in McDowell County
Charu said a neighborhood in McDowell County has a problem with gang members vandalizing property, but Charu never identified the neighborhood.

She talked to two women who said their homes were hit with grafitti. Other people have had their homes robbed. One woman said somebody spray-painted “OFB” on her window. She said that stands for “Old Fort Boys,” a gang hooked up with the Crips. Where are the parents, one of the women asks.

Charu talked to a local sheriff’s deputy, who said he’s tracking nine area gangs, including one with at least 250 known gang members. He told Charu gang activity is widespread and on the increase. One local gang has connections to California and another has Chicago ties, he said.

Election results official
The Buncombe County Board of Elections certified last Tuesday’s vote. Turns out that newcomer Bill Russell won by 74 votes over Ashvegas City Councilman Bryan Freeborn, or 10 votes less than the original count. Freeborn has until 5 p.m. Wednesday to ask for a formal recount.

School buses – accidents waiting to happen
That’s the sweeps story from Pat Simon on Tuesday. Are your children safe on the bus? Simon says that as a parent, he thought they were safe, but after looking at the numbers, he’s not so sure.

But Simon’s story lacked the real context and balance to let us decide for ourselves. The whole story is predicated on the scare, but buses travel hundreds of thousands of miles a year. He says school buses in the mountains have an average of one wreck a week, but he doesn’t compare that to other motor vehicle wrecks. And he doesn’t break down the severity of the wrecks. He also ends his report by saying that most fatalities involving school buses happen when they’re dropping off or picking up kids, which means that other vehicles and drivers are at fault, not school buses.

But all that didn’t stop Simon from doing the story. He showed us photos and video from past bus wrecks. And he talked to one parent, who said one bus wreck is one too many. Simon talked to Harold Laflin, the transportation director for Buncombe County Schools, who said Buncombe has the seventh largest bus fleet in the state. Local buses have fuel tanks built in steel cages and shatter-proof glass in windows and some new buses with escape hatches in roofs and seats with higher backs to keep kids from slamming into one another in a wreck.

School systems continue to study the issue of seat belts on buses, and lap belts as well.

18 and out
Larry Blunt had another sweeps story about kids who age out of foster care at age 18. It was a feature-type story that looked at the issue and some resources out there in place to help these kids. More needs to be done, although the state has a law that extends Medicaid coverage to foster kids until age 21. And there’s a new state law coming that will cover tuition for these kids.

Early Thanksgiving travel worries
WLOSers jumped the gun on Thanksgiving travel by posting Courtney Ward at the Ashvegas airport at noon to talk about air travel this holiday, more than a week before the actual holiday. They also had a story on State Highway Patrol troopers launching Operation Slowdown this week to target highway speeders. Slow down. The turkey will be waiting for you when you get there.