In answer to our question from last month, police have charged one man, Danny Robbie Hembree Jr., 47, with the two recent murders of women in Gaston County as well as a third murder from 1992. That, ladies and gents, is a serial killer. A second man, James Arthur Swanson, 41, was also charged with first-degree murder in the death of Deborah Denise Ratchford, 30, 17 years ago.
This only one day after Gaston County police told reporters that Hembree was not a serial killer after he was charged with the murders of Randi Dean Saldana, 30, and Heather Marie Catterton, 17. Uh, huh.
Clearly Hembree needs to run against all unsolved murders of females in Gaston for the past 20 years. It appears that Hembree was in prison when the murder of UNCC student Ira Yarmolenko took place. Not so Swanson, who police also must screen for involvement in past murders. Sounds obvious doesn’t it? But here we had a top ranking police official sounding sure that Hembree could not be linked to any other murders.
Both Hembree and Swanson have multiple felon convictions for robbery and burglary, according to state records.
Update: OK. This one is gonna be in heavy rotation on the cable shows. Turns out Hembree was dating the sister of Heather Catterton, a woman who was also friends with Randi Saldana. This Gaston Gazette account does not provide the age of Nicole Catterton, but she appears to be in her 20s.
