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Charlotte Observer: 7,000-Word Report on Tragedies at Best Western in Boone

Dec. 23, 2013. Published on Dec. 15, five Charlotte Observer reporters and a researcher contributed to a 7,000-word piece that, in perhaps the most in-depth manner to date, explores the tragedies at the Best Western hotel in Boone earlier this year.

Read excerpt: 

Open the door to Room 225 at the Best Western hotel.

Jeannie Williams and her 11-year-old son, Jeffrey, are settling in after driving up from the family farm outside Rock Hill. It is a little before 10 on a rainy Friday evening in early June. They plan to pick up Jeffrey’s older sister the following morning from a weeklong Christian youth camp.

Jeffrey snuggles beneath the covers of the king-size bed, wearing his plaid pajamas. Jeannie later told her family she remembers sitting beside him, talking with her husband over the phone. She tells him goodnight, then begins her Bible study.

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