Via Chapel Hill Police:

Early this morning at approximately 4:15 am, the Durham Police Department located Lawrence Alvin Lovett Jr. (17) at a residence in Durham. Lovett surrendered to police without incident and is currently being held at the Durham Police Department. The arrest warrants for First Degree Murder were transferred over to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations for service. Our current understanding is that Lovett will not be transferred over to the Chapel Hill Police Department.

Freshmen Julie Ivey (left) and Caitlin Hughes at last week’s candlelight vigil for Eve Carson.

By Kirk Ross & Emily Burns
Staff Writers

In the recorded history of this community, few stories have been sadder.

With barely a week having passed since the murder of Student Body President Eve Marie Carson, emotions are still raw; and as campus gears up after its spring break, there will be time again on Tuesday to remember a bright and personable student leader whose life ended violently near the intersection of Hillcrest Drive and Hillcrest Circle in the early-morning hours of Wednesday, March 5.

Police said Carson, an Athens, Georgia native who came to Carolina as a Morehead-Cain scholar, was shot multiple times, including at least once in the head. Days into the investigation, police released photos of two “persons of interest” seen using Carson’s ATM card and driving what appears to be her 2005 Toyota Highlander.

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Harbinger of spring: flowers of Hepatica. Photo by Ken Moore.

By Ken Moore

You have to take care to avoid stepping on the Hepaticas when you approach the bench to sit and enjoy the sights and sounds along New Hope Creek at the old mill site. It’s springtime on Triangle Land Conservancy’s Johnston Mill Nature Preserve; Hepaticas and other spring wildflowers are emerging.

Johnston Mill Nature Preserve is just one of several that Triangle Land Conservancy (TLC) manages throughout Chatham, Durham, Johnston, Lee, Orange and Wake counties. It is well worth your investigating the website, www.tlc-nc.org, for site descriptions and a schedule of seasonal interpretive walking and canoe excursions in these preserves.

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By Robert N. Eby
Chatham County Line

Reflecting the slowdown in the national economy, development in Chatham County, both residential and commercial, is stuttering. While some projects are still moving ahead, many have slowed down and a few have been abandoned. New residential building permits for Chatham County, including Pittsboro but not Cary, which had been averaging 138 per quarter since the fourth quarter of 2004, dropped sharply in the fourth quarter of 2007, to only 62. This is despite the fact that more than 10,000 home sites have been authorized.

The one exception is in Cary’s part of the county, where the Amberly development is moving ahead briskly. During the last half of 2007, Cary issued 198 permits for homes inside of Chatham County, while Chatham issued only 189 permits.

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[Editor’s note: This is part of an ongoing Citizen series on how debt and mortgage problems and the slowdown in the economy are affecting local markets.]

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

As the subprime mortgage crisis morphed into a debt crisis and led to a slowdown in housing markets across the country, many here were optimistic that the area would once again be insulated from the fallout.

The dynamic of a growing university, an attractive public school system and a market that by nature has a good deal of turnover remains. But the optimism that the local market would ride out the storm unscathed has waned. Even the most upbeat realtors will acknowledge some pain. Many are leading sellers through what Weaver Street Realty’s Gary Phillips describes as “reality therapy,” telling them to expect much more time on the market and a more modest assessment of the return one can expect.

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<br /> Marianne Principe has reclaimed her life with Journey’s help. Photo by Valarie Schwartz.

By Valarie Schwartz

At first it seemed to her Dogwood Acres neighbors that Marianne Principe was an assistance dog trainer, as they were seen walking each morning. Usually the first with a greeting to others walking along, she clearly had her sight, though the beautiful Golden Retriever, with its harness and “Do Not Pet” sign, was obviously an assistance dog.

Assistance dog, indeed — “Journey” has been assisting Principe with her balance since going to live with her in October 2006, providing her with stability since her equilibrium was suddenly robbed in January 2005.

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Thursday March 13

Blue Horn Lounge: Paleface. 10pm
The Cave: Early: Davis Stillson. Late: Town Mountain, $5
General Store Café: Club Boheme. 8pm
Local 506: Pulsoptional, Phon, Craig Hilton. 9pm. $6

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Julie Coleman, left, sits with Daphne Hill and pictures of their children. The two founded the Chapel Hill chapter of The Compassionate Friends, which helps parents cope with losing a child. Photo by Emily Burns.

By Emily Burns
Staff Writer

Four and a half years have passed since Olivia Royal Petty, then 25, was killed in an automobile accident, but her mother Daphne Hill said that it sometimes feels like it has been just four and a half weeks.

For parents who have lost a child, Hill said, the grieving process never stops.

“We are always thinking about our child in the back of our minds,” said Hill, co-founder of the Chapel Hill Area Chapter of The Compassionate Friends, an international self-help support group for adults dealing with the loss of a child or sibling.

“We just want to say, ‘Talk about it,’” she said.

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Hazel Felker Kiser, 83, died Friday at Duke Hospice in Hillsborough.

She was born in China Grove, N.C. on September 14, 1924 and moved to Kannapolis as a child. She graduated from Canon High School in 1942. In 1952, she moved to Chapel Hill with her husband. She was formerly employed by Village Family Medicine as the office manager. She also worked for Central Carolina Bank and was a former church secretary for Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Chapel Hill, where she was a member for over 50 years.

She is survived by her daughter and son-in-law, Barbara and Richard Bryson of Yadkinville; and her son and daughter-in-law, Dale and Margaret Kiser of Pittsboro.

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Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools will host an Exceptional Children District Parent Night, “Navigating the Special Education Process,” on March 13 at 6:30 p.m. at the Carolina Center for Educational Excellence on the Smith Middle School campus.
To register or for more information, visit www.chccs.k12.nc.us or call Karen Patillo at 967-8211, ext. 234.

The Orange County Economic Development Commission will host its annual “State of the Local Economy” event at the Carolina Club in Chapel Hill on Wednesday, April 9 from noon to 1:30 p.m. Registration begins at 11:30 a.m. The guest speaker is Charles Hayes, president and CEO of the Research Triangle Partnership. Tickets are $30, a table is $275.

For more information, visit www.co.orange.nc.us/ecodev or contact Yvonne Scarlet at 245-2325 or yscarlett@co.orange.nc.us.

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John Sanders, former director of the Institute of Government at UNC, was honored Feb. 21 by the North Carolina Bar Association as the 2008 recipient of the John McNeill Smith Jr. Constitutional Rights and Responsibilities Section Award.

The award honors a person who has demonstrated extraordinary commitment to the ideals embodied in the constitutions of the United States and the state of North Carolina. Sanders was the principal staff person for the 1968 North Carolina State Constitution Study Commission, which produced the state’s present Constitution.

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UNC’s Wesley Foundation was criticized when it unveiled plans to build a 70,000-square-foot five-story Methodist dorm where its current building stands now on Pittsboro Street. Residents of the Cameron-McCauley historic district opposed the move to a bigger building. The current building is only 17,000 square feet now.

Alternative plans were presented Monday and suggested either a smaller, four-story building or a property swap with the Office of Undergraduate Education and academic advising offices at 223 E. Franklin St. — which would then be bulldozed and replaced with either the five- or four-story building.

Because water supplies have reached 57 percent due to recent rainfall, the OWASA board of directors will meet at 3:30 p.m. today (Thursday) to discuss delaying the rate surcharges associated with the stage three water shortage declared on Feb. 28.
If not delayed, the surcharges for water use would go into effect on March 17. At the Feb. 28 meeting, OWASA staff recommended that stage three restrictions be removed if lakes are 60 percent full by April 1.

The Town of Carrboro will be closed on Friday, March 21. There will be no garbage collection that day; Friday’s garbage will be collected one day earlier.  There will be no change in the curbside recycling schedule.