Nell Cropsey’s Christmas Murder

Nell Cropsey was murdered in 1901. The pretty North Carolina girl’s body was found floating in the Pasquotank River, not far from her home in Elizabeth City.

Suspicion didn’t so much fall on her sweetheart Jim Wilcox as bury him – there was nearly a lynching. But Nell’s family insisted on a proper trial. Wilcox denied everything. His first guilty conviction was overturned and a conviction for second degree murder ended in a governor’s pardon. On his release, Wilcox told his story to a local journalist, who promptly died in a car crash, just before Wilcox took his own life.

Nell, who died at Christmas 114 years ago, is still an unquiet spirit, according to locals who have reported any number of unexplained phenomena at her former home.

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