Asheville Citizen-Times from Asheville, North Carolina • Page 8

ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES A8 FRIDAY, NOV. 20, 1998 Slain woman's mother: 'It's something you never get over' was crazy," McConnell said. "You don't expect this to happen, and i you don't know why it happens. You're never prepared." All these years, the family i Other unsolved murders examined Slaylngs from page Al the two cases. But he said Hyatt "cooperated in part of the case." Asked about the motive, Med-ford referred questions to the District Attorney's Office.

Medford said authorities are looking at some other unsolved murders following Hyatt's arrest, a routine move following such an arrest. "I just think they've made a mistake," said Hyatt's father, James, from the West Asheville home they shared. "I just don't be hadn't ridden home together that night. Debra had gotten a ride home with her boyfriend. Betty was driving her sister's car home.

When her mother woke her up, Debra McConnell told her mother her sister should have been home hours earlier. "We didn't go back to bed," McConnell, now 62, said late Thursday. "The next thing we heard was the police about 6 a.m. They told us someone needed to come to the police station." "From that point on, everything By Susan Dryman STAFF WRITER Finally, a name. After 19 years, Margaret McConnell finally has a name in connection with the stabbing death of her daughter, Betty Sue.

That name is Terry Alvin Hyatt, 41, who was charged late Thursday with killing Betty Sue McConnell in 1979. Margaret McConnell says she has mixed feelings about the arrest. On the one hand, she may finally get some answers to what happened to her daughter so long ago. On the other hand, an arrest means dredging up the tragedy. But it was never buried anyway, McConnell said.

Not a day has passed that she hasn't thought about her daughter's stabbing death, about what happened during her final hours and who did it. "You learn to live with it," she said. "But it's something you never get over." Betty Sue McConnell was working the late shift at Dunkin' Donuts in the Innsbruck Mall that Aug. 25, 1979. She had called her mother to tell her she was meeting a friend at the bowling alley on Patton Avenue, was going to get a hamburger and would be home soon.

Betty McConnell wasn't the kind of daughter who would keep her mother waiting, not the kind of daughter who would show up hours late, her mother said. So when 4 a.m. came and went, a frantic Margaret McConnell woke her other daughter, Debra. The two young women worked at the doughnut shop together, but hasn't learned much more aoouc her fate until now. They've been baffled about who would want to hurt such a nice, friendly, outgoing young woman.

Betty Sue lea behind a 2-year-old daughter, Heather. McConnell and her husband, Carl, adopted Heather. She is 21 now and is a "walking image of her mother." SHOP FOSDDAY AMD SATURDAY WHY 1 'I FAMILY CLOTHING LrizLkS VAVI kN i lieve it." Hyatt apparently did not know the two women, according to Medford. McConnell was found stabbed on Aug. 25, 1979, just hours after leaving her job at Dunkin' Donuts on Tunnel Road.

She was last seen driving on Tunnel Road at 2 a.m. Three hours later at a campground on the banks of the French Broad River, authorities say McConnell was found stabbed after she apparently "crawled out of the river," according to officials. Residents heard screams and cries for help about 4:45 a.m. that Saturday and rushed to McConnell, according to published accounts in the Citizen-Times. An ambulance was called, but despite efforts to save her life, she died before crews arrived.

McConnell was fully clothed when discovered lying on a driveway down an embankment from U.S. 25-70 near the intersection of N.C. 191 in the Alexander area. Roughly two hours later, Asheville police received a report of a partially submerged automobile, its headlights still beaming, in the French Broad near the county garage on Craven Street. The vehicle was found about 5 miles south of the area where McConnell was found.

McConnell was hist seen alive driving the 1972 Toyota, which was registered to her sister. Preliminary autopsy reports at the time showed McConnell bled to death. She had been stabbed at least four times in the chest, the county medical examiner reported. Investigators searched fruitlessly for a murder weapon. The investigation teamed Buncombe County Sheriffs Deputies and Asheville Police with the SBI, whose agents sent evidence from the submerged car for analysis in Raleigh.

Four months before McConnell was killed, Harriet Simmons disappeared after leaving her Job in Raleigh, according to Buncombe officials. Simmons, of Franklinton, left work at 1:30 a.m. on April 15, 1979. Nearly one year later, on March 23, 1980, her skeletal remains were found off N.C. 151 in Candler.

Authorities say Simmons had been stabbed to death. McConnell, a native of Transylvania County, had lived most of her life in Buncombe County and attended Reynolds High School. Simmons and McConnell were killed months before Hyatt was charged with kidnapping and robbing an Asheville woman. He was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison. The Citizen-Times could not verify his release date from prison late Thursday.

Victims shot after struggle Break-In from page Al black, small-caliber revolver. Cephas told police that he picked up an ironing board and tried to hit one of the masked men when he was shot Bell wan struggling with the second man when he was shot as well. The suspects then ran, taking only Bell's Tommy Hilfiger wallet with between $400 and $500 in it. Bell's mother, Beverly Ann Bell, told police that she heard shots fired and ran to the basement door to find out what had happened. She said the two young men yelled for her to call police because they had been shot Bell and Cephas were taken by ambulance to the hospital Cephas was treated and released, hospital officials say.

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