History's A Disaster
Bloody history and bloodier crimes. Andrew takes a weekly look at all things bloody. From natural disasters to man made atrocities
History's A Disaster
The Unsolved Be-Lo Murders
A shocking triple homicide shatters the peaceful facade of small-town Windsor, North Carolina, leaving a community forever changed and a killer who vanished without a trace.
When people talk about small towns where everyone knows everyone and doors remain unlocked, they're talking about places like Windsor. With just 2,000 residents in 1993, this tight-knit community believed they knew all the faces that walked their streets—until June 6th, when an unmasked stranger turned a routine grocery store robbery into an execution-style triple murder that remains unsolved three decades later.
The Be-Lo grocery store served as more than just a place to shop—it was where locals caught up on gossip while grabbing their essentials. But as manager Grover Cecil and cashier Joyce Friesen prepared to close on that fateful Sunday evening, they had no idea someone had been hiding among the aisles, waiting. After a cleaning crew arrived and Cecil locked the front door, the gunman emerged with a .45 caliber pistol and a chilling claim: he was a former police officer with "nothing to lose." What followed was a methodical attack that left three people dead, two seriously wounded, and a community traumatized.
The case yielded tantalizing evidence—a fingerprint, DNA from the killer's blood when he broke his knife while stabbing a victim, witness descriptions, and reports of a white sedan with Maryland plates fleeing town. Yet despite the FBI's involvement, a detailed behavioral profile, and a $30,000 reward that remains active today, the killer's identity remains a mystery. The fingerprint and blood have never matched anyone in law enforcement databases, contradicting his claim of being a former officer. Was this the work of a sophisticated killer who knew how to cover his tracks, or simply a brutal crime of opportunity that benefited from luck and timing? The question haunts Windsor to this day.
Have you heard about this case before? If you have information that might help solve this long-cold triple homicide, contact the Windsor Police Department or the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation—because somewhere, someone knows what really happened that night at the Be-Lo store.
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Special thank you to Lunarfall Audio for producing and doing all the heavy lifting on audio editing since April 13, 2025, the Murder of Christopher Meyer episode https://lunarfallaudio.com/
Small towns are great. Everyone knows everyone. People don't lock their doors. Everybody knows your business. Can't go anywhere without running into a familiar face. You can't spit on Main Street without that bitch Mary over a knife knowing about it five minutes later. There are no strangers, but on one night in 1993, a stranger did come into a small town in North Carolina and three people would end up dead A robbery and triple homicide that would remain unsolved for over 30 years. So what happened? I'm Andrew, and this is History's A Disaster. Tonight we're taking a dive into an unsolved murder that took place in Windsor, north Carolina, in 1993. Tonight's episode is brought to you by Stack-Em-Up, the revolutionary new storage system that'll let you stack anything to meet your storage demands.
Speaker 1:Now, windsor is a small town in the county seat of Birdie County in North Carolina. It's located in the inland coastal area of Northeast North Carolina called the Inner Banks. It's a small town in a sea of small towns, and by small, it currently has a population of roughly 4,000 people, and back in 1993, that number was closer to 2,000. So, like I said in the intro, it's the type of place where everyone knows everyone, and over on Granville Street was the local B-Lo store. That's B-Lo, not Bilo. I had to look it up because I was confused and I thought there was a typo. The B-Lo store was part of a small regional chain of grocery stores in the area. This store in particular was also one of the town's central meeting places. It was both a place to get your shopping done and catch up with local gossip, as locals strolled up and down the aisles getting their shopping done and chatting with whoever they ran into. Strangers weren't uncommon in the area, with US 17, the coastal highway running right through the center of town, which would bring some people through who would stop to visit the parks in the area. B-lo, however, was not on the highway and kind of off the main road, so you really had to know it was there. It's not something most people passing through would stumble upon.
Speaker 1:On Sunday, june 6th, most people were out enjoying the weather on this Memorial Day weekend. Rover Cecil was not. He was the relatively new manager at B-Lo and had to work the closing shift on this Sunday, and he's looking at a long night ahead of him with having to close the store, plus a cleaning crew was coming in to do the floors. While this was mostly routine, I'm sure this 47-year-old husband and father of five had better things to do on a holiday weekend. Joyce Friesen, a 36-year-old single mother of two, was getting ready for her closing shift as the cashier at B-Love. She was looking forward to the early closing hours. With the store closing at 6, she would have plenty of time to spend with her new fiancé. With the summer coming, her upcoming wedding was getting closer. It was just a few months away. The day dragged on as a slow stream of customers came in to shop and gossip. Joyce and Grover made the best of it by chatting with customers as they came in and when no one was in there they got a jump start on the closing cleaning checklist.
Speaker 1:As six o'clock rolls around, the four-man cleaning crew pull up in their pickup truck. Johnny Rankins Jr, sylvester Welch Jr, who went by, tony and brothers Jasper and Thomas Hardy start unloading their equipment in preparation of waxing and cleaning the floors. As Cecil locked the front door. While Cecil walked through the store, leaving Joyce alone, near the front, an unknown figure, a black male with a military-style haircut and slender build, steps out of hiding With no mask or any means to hide his identity. He pulls a .45 caliber pistol and aims it at Joyce. He tells her to stay calm and call for the manager. As Grover comes forward, the gunman takes control of the situation, using the gun as a means of controlling his two hostages. He orders them into the cash office With the gun in his back. Grover is ordered to open the safe and fill a canvas bag with the money $3,000 quickly fills the bag. Money in
Speaker 1:hand. The attacker orders his hostages toward the back of the store. As they near the back, jasper Hardy, who had been sweeping the floors, rounds the corner and sees the trio. He sees the weird looks on Grover and Joyce's faces and some guy he doesn't know. Then he notices the gun pressed into Grover's back. Grover tells him to do what the man says. He means
Speaker 1:business. The attacker takes a detour through the pet section, stopping momentarily to grab a handful of leashes before ordering the group onwards. They stumble on two other members of the cleaning crew who submitted to the attacker's demands and called for the fourth member to come out. He pushed them onwards to the back storeroom. Still in control. He tells the hostages that he's a former cop and since he just got fired he has nothing left to lose. A clear threat of evil intentions. He pulls out a roll of duct tape and tells his hostages to tie each other up with the tape and the leashes, before eventually tying the last one up himself. His calm demeanor slowly splits away as he mutters to himself I don't want to have to kill
Speaker 1:anybody. The mood in the room turns sinister as he orders his cooperating hostages to lie on the floor, one on top of each other in three piles, his pistol waving in the air. To punctuate his commands, they lay one on top of the other, grover on top of one stack, joyce another and Johnny Rankins the last. They held their breaths and waited for the sounds of his receding footsteps. What they heard was far worse. The gunman, still muttering to himself, says I hope God forgives me for what I'm about to
Speaker 1:do. Then a gunshot breaks the silence, followed by another and another On the fourth trigger pull. The gun clicks on an empty magazine. He had fired one shot each into the three stacks of bodies, hoping that the large caliber bullet would go through and kill both people in the stack. It does not. He separates them and places them face down in a growing pool of blood. The brothers, thomas and Jasper Hardy, are uninjured. Seeing this, the attacker walks away, the brothers remain still and silent as they offer up a prayer that it was all over. That hope was crushed as their attacker comes back with a large knife from another room, he walks up to Thomas and asks if he can identify him to police. Thomas says no, and this pissed off the killer. He yells at Thomas, saying he doesn't believe him. He lashes out with the knife and cuts Thomas's throat. Still enraged, he stabs Thomas in the back over and over, with enough force to snap the blade off in his back. With Thomas bleeding out, he turns his attention to Jasper and repeats his question. Jasper tells him no man, I don't know you. He holds his breath, waiting for the death blow that's surely coming. Instead he hears Okay, big man, I believe you, and the sounds of the attacker's footsteps fading
Speaker 1:away. The attack was over as quickly as it had begun. Tony Welch, who had been severely wounded as the bullet passed through, another body struck him, managed to free himself. Blood had covered the duct tape to the point it lost its stickiness. He manages to control his fear and immense pain from the gunshot wound and crawls to the front of the store, leaving a trail of blood behind as he makes his way to get to a phone to call the
Speaker 1:cops. Windsor police were on scene quickly. The scene from the outside looked normal enough. The only vehicle is in the parking lot belonging to the cleaning crew and the employees. The front door was locked when they tried it and no one answered the phone when they made attempts to contact anyone inside. Once they gained entry, the store was deathly quiet and still Only the hum of the freezers filled the air. They came across Tony Welch first. They waited for paramedics to see to Tony before following his blood trail to the rear of the store and the horrors that awaited them. Grover, cecil and Joyce Reason lay in a pool of blood, dead from gunshot wounds to the head. Johnny Rankins lay in the pool nearby, dead from a gunshot wound to the back. Tony Welch and Thomas Hardy, both gravely injured, are rushed to the Pitt Memorial Hospital in Greenville, 42 miles away. Jasper Hardy managed to remain
Speaker 1:uninjured. Securing the scene, the cops collected evidence and tried to piece together what happened. They find the three shell casings near where the victims laid. Two bloody footprints were found. One was from medical personnel and the other is believed to have come from the killer. A stray fingerprint on the duct tape not belonging to the victims was lifted, as well as a small blood sample that didn't match anyone was found. The killer was believed to have cut himself when the knife broke and left his DNA
Speaker 1:behind. While the police searched for evidence, two separate witnesses called the police about a white sedan with Maryland plates speeding out of town northbound on US 17. They would give a vague description of the driver of the car. Tony and Thomas would later talk to police and give them more information, which would eventually lead to a sketch of the killer. Early in the investigation they would get plenty of leads, but none of them amounted to any serious information. They put out the word to other law enforcement agencies about the killer's claim of being a former cop, while they would receive lists of recently fired cops. Nothing came of it and many of the people working the case had their doubts on the claim to begin with. The fact that he went into a robbery with only three bullets led them to believe he didn't have any sort of police or military
Speaker 1:training. No one in the surrounding area seen or heard anything out of the ordinary no gunshots, no screams, nothing as far as the town was concerned. Until police showed up at B-Lo. Nothing was wrong. It was just another Sunday. They put up wanted posters all over town, the sketch of the killer's face, a constant reminder around town everywhere you look, with no one in custody and no suspects. The town was scared. Firearms classes held by the Birdie County Sheriff's Department were filled up. No one was taking chances with their safety. Everyone was on
Speaker 1:edge. Five days after the murders, b-lo reopened but sales were way down. No one wanted to shop there and deal with another constant reminder of this tragedy. By the end of July the store was permanently closed and left boarded up, a terrible reminder of that night. More leads came pouring in, some from as far away as Washington State. People were seeing the suspect everywhere and I'm sure none of it had anything to do with people hoping to cash in on the $30,000 reward that was raised for information. However, no progress was made. All the leads were vague and led nowhere. The store's surveillance system was not working the night of the murders so there was no help there. The fingerprint and DNA led nowhere. No matches have ever been found, which, to me at least, rules out any former cops or
Speaker 1:military. The FBI's behavioral science unit got involved and took what little was known and developed a profile of the killer. According to their profile, the killer had served time in prison, likely for a quote-unquote serious felony. During his time in prison, he was probably a model prisoner, cooperative and non-confrontational. Odds were he had fallen in with a religious group, maybe even a cult. Now, whether he was simply a follower or worked his way into a position of leadership in this group is another question. The profile paints him as charismatic, able to manipulate people to suit his will. His overall demeanor during the commission of his crimes is an extension of his personality, one that uses a friendly facade to mask his true intentions. It is also unlikely that the below murders were his first, a fact that likely helped build his
Speaker 1:confidence. This is a dangerous man. The bonds of family and friends do not ensure safety. This is especially true if he suspects someone knows about the things he has done. The FBI strongly believed he would have confided in someone about the crime. Plus, if the reports about the white sedan are true, there was a second person involved. Now, my main issue with this profile is the killer being in prison. If he had been convicted of a serious felony, as the profile suggests, would his prints have been in the system, unless he just managed to get lucky, being the early 90s and they hadn't been put in yet. Maybe I don't
Speaker 1:know. With nothing coming back from any leads, the investigation is looking grim. Then a company out of Texas comes forward with a possible solution Satellites. If they were lucky, there was a satellite in orbit above Windsor that may have gotten a picture that night, a picture they could blow up and maybe get more information out of. In August the town council desperately agreed to pay the $300 fee to run a scan to see if there was a satellite overhead that night. Okay, I know they're desperate and grasping at any straws in hopes of solving the case, but what are the chances that in 1993, a satellite is going to be directly overhead of a random small town in North Carolina? Unsurprisingly, the scan came back that there was none in the sky that
Speaker 1:night. With the investigation stalling out, fear had a stranglehold on the town. Parents wouldn't let their kids outside to play. Merchants called for police escorts to make their nightly deposits. They all feared the killer was still in town, waiting right around the corner to get them. As time ticked by, the fear lessened, but only slightly. Leads continued to come in and law enforcement agencies investigated everyone. For the residents of Windsor, life started to go back to normal. In June of 1994, they held a memorial service in the parking lot of the now vacant store. Over 200 people came to both pay their respects and to show support for the families of the victims. With the killers still at large, the survivors didn't show up For them. Like the families of those killed, normalcy was never going to happen and this would not be the only unsolved robbery turned murder in the area at the
Speaker 1:time. 21 miles south of Windsor is the town of Beargrass, home of Cherry's Cupboard, a convenience store just a few miles off of US 17. It was a favorite of the locals who came in for the hot food being served at the grill inside. The fresh fried chicken was a town favorite. The owner, jerry Cherry and I love that name. The owner Jerry Cherry, knew everyone that came in mostly May 30th of 1993, a week before the B-Lo murders started, like any other, customers came and went picking up supplies for the holiday weekend or to get some of that fried chicken. As business slowed down, jerry Cherry left to run some errands which left the 65-year-old Audrey Leggett alone in the store. She helped out a few customers and talked to her daughter on the phone. She would eventually have to get off the phone when another customer came in. A while later a customer walks in to find this store unintended. After a quick search, audrey's body was found in the cooler. She had been shot multiple times by a .22 caliber pistol. Police were called in and they set up roadblocks, but nothing came of it. There was no witnesses and no leads. There's some speculation to link the two murders, but nothing concrete Could just be one hell of a coincidence based on
Speaker 1:the timing. On May 10th of 1994, another B-Lo in Hertford, north Carolina, was similarly robbed. Hertford is 34 miles north of Windsor. The gunman hid in the store and waited till after closing to come out and rob the store with a large caliber handgun. The manager and cashier were again bound with duct tape and leashes. However, the gunman did not shoot anyone. He let them live and disappeared with an undisclosed amount
Speaker 1:of money. There was a few other differences in the robbery. The gunman didn't speak during the crime. He also wore a mask to hide his face and was described as having a stocky build, where the killer in the Windsor robbery was described as slender. It's unknown if the two are connected or if this was just a copycat. The case still remains active to this day. Leads still come in that need to be chased down and that fingerprint and DNA are checked to see if anything ever comes up. The $30,000 reward is still active for anyone with information leading to an arrest. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the Windsor Police Department or the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. And that was the unsolved B-Low murders and that was the unsolved
Speaker 1:below murders. Thanks for listening and if you like the show, please consider leaving a rating or review on your app of choice, and you can reach out to the show at historiesofdisaster at gmailcom with questions, comments or suggestions, as well as follow the show on social media Facebook, instagram, tumblr, a few others, you know, tiktok, youtube, whatever and share the episode. Your friends will love it. Take care of yourself out there. Chase that dream. Live for today, because tomorrow is never guaranteed. Thanks and goodbye.