Double Murder, Double Confession

Small Town Murder visits Gatesville, a town of about 302 people in Gates County, in the north-east of North Carolina, two hours from Richmond, Virginia. It covers 0.4 square miles, has no website of its own and is mostly white and evangelical. The county was formed in 1779 and named after General Horatio Gates. It grew from a wooded area of swamp and sandy soil into farmland, and its economy still rests on agriculture and timber.

On the evening of 18 August 1990 Daniel Oliver Croy went to Rogers Grocery, a family-run store owned by Min Linda Long Rogers, who worked there with her 16-year-old daughter, also called Linda. Croy drank beer and talked with them until about 8:45 p.m. During the evening a stocky white man of 30 to 35, with a moustache and a baseball cap, came into the store and left. As Croy backed out of his parking space, that man pulled up beside him, said he was an SBI agent working with the DEA on a big drug deal, and offered to show his credentials. He held up a pump shotgun and said, 'There's my credentials.' Croy drove off.

At about 9.30 p.m. Harold Lowe, his girlfriend Kathy Winslow and Chris Bailey were parked under a street light outside the store, waiting for a friend, Will Harrell. They saw Min Rogers leave the store with a white man and talk to him outside before she went back in. A few moments later the man came to their car with a shotgun. He showed what Lowe described as some kind of identification with a picture, said he was a DEA agent about to seize over $1.5 million of cocaine, and told them to leave or be accessories. They left. Harrell arrived at about 9.50 p.m., went into the store and saw Min talking to a white man of medium build in a plaid shirt, cap and moustache. Nothing seemed wrong and he went home.

The next morning, 19 August, part-time employee John Lambert arrived at 9 a.m. to open the store, realised he had left his key at home, fetched it and found the door already unlocked. Inside he found both women dead. Linda was naked on her back in a large pool of blood, with a huge shotgun wound to the upper chest and shattered teeth. Min was fully clothed on a lounge chair behind the counter, her sweater pulled up a little and her shorts unzipped and pulled down, with a massive head wound. The money had been taken from the register. The chief medical examiner of North Carolina, Dr Page Hudson, found that Min was shot from two to four feet away and that Linda had been sexually assaulted around the time of her death and shot under the chin.

this part of the story is covered for now Deputy sheriff George Ryan and Hertford County sheriff Ronnie Stallings questioned him. He had been fired from Rose Brothers on 14 August. details of the account remain covered until revealed He said he refused, then financial problems arose, he could not find the man again and decided to kill her on spec. He said he visited the store on 18 August, left because there were customers, and returned with a sawn-off 12-gauge pump shotgun with pistol grips. He told Min he would shoot her, she laughed, he made her lie on the lounge chair and shot her in the chest from about eight inches. Linda came out of the back room, he searched her, made her undress, raped her and shot her, then took the bank bag and the cash.

He then changed his story. He said he had stopped at the store for a drink, an older white man (Croy) teased him by calling him cowgirl or cowboy, and he left angry to Alvin Riddick's house, where he drank two bottles of George Dickel whisky. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now

details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it The weapon was never found. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed It accepted some mitigation: a mental or emotional disturbance and a psychosexual disorder for Linda's murder, and his waiving of silence and cooperation for Min's. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it The North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed on 10 February 1997, and the US Supreme Court denied review on 27 February 2006. this part of the story is covered for now

His lawyers sought clemency and DNA retesting. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed District attorney Frank Parrish was sceptical but complied. LabCorp tested the sample from Linda around 1 June 2006, and the result was inconclusive, with characteristics shared by 60 per cent of men. The judge refused the defence's other requests.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now