Oxycontin News Blog

Edna Hurst believes she knows who killed her daughter a year ago.

She can't prove it, and said that's one of the most frustrating things for her.

Even after the man passed a polygraph test, she still thinks he's involved.

Hurst wouldn't say who she suspected the killer to be, but said whoever shot and killed her daughter was a coward.

"We do miss her, we do love her, but they didn't just take her, they took a piece of my heart," Hurst said.

Detectives said they have narrowed their list of suspects in the death of Betty Ann Stevens, 45, who was found shot to death last Oct. 31.

But detectives need to gather more information before they can make an arrest, said Brad Riley, Cabarrus County Sheriff.

"We believe we have some good information, and out of the suspect pool, if we can have people come forward and give us some information we can do something," Riley said.

Riley said Stevens' death does not appear to be random and that she probably knew her shooter.

"I can't tell you for sure, but I believe that," he said.

Riley would not say how many people are suspects or how Stevens knew the suspects.

He would not say if the suspects are in Cabarrus County or if the detectives found the murder weapon.

Riley said the case is one of many that officials review about once a week.

Riley would not say what detectives believe the motive may be, but he said it does not appear that anything was missing from the home. He said it does not appear to be a case of breaking and entering to steal something.

Stevens' family disputes that. They say that Stevens was suffering from cancer and taking Oxycontin.

When Stevens' family went through the home they never found the Oxycontin or any money that would have been at the home.

Hurst isn't sure if anything was stolen, but she wants to catch the shooter.

She has questions about the shooting and just wants to know why anyone would kill her daughter.

"To you who shot my daughter and anybody involved, I'm not going away and neither is my daughter," Hurst said. "I will stay in the press and on TV until they get you."

Robin Thomas remembers walking into Stevens' home shortly after the shooting.

She grew up with Stevens, raised by Hurst after her own mother died of cancer. Thomas and Stevens were cousins, but considered themselves more like sisters.

And she knew that Stevens always kept her door closed.

When she walked up to the home on Oct. 31, 2004, she saw that the front door was open.

Thomas found Stevens at her Ashland Home about 9:05 p.m.

"I never saw a gunshot wound, but knew it was gunshots," Thomas said.

Thomas said if suspects did steal from Stevens they knew exactly where the items were and never ransacked the home.

"If it was they took their time to clean the place up," Thomas said.

Suspects apparently shot through the exterior of Stevens' mobile home, hitting her in the chest, according to a news release.

Hurst said detectives have worked on the case and SBI agents event stayed at the home for about three weeks searching the yard.

Officers told Hurst and others to not have the yard mowed until they were finished.

But Hurst, Thomas and the rest of the family are struggling to know just what happened.

"We really don't know anything," Thomas said. "There's so many different things - was there more than one person? Were they on the porch when they shot or did they shoot from the driveway?"

Thomas and the others have not given up on finding Stevens' shooter.

Thomas has done what she could in her spare time to try and gather information.

Anyone who mentions Stevens, she asks them questions, in the homes she might hear something that could help detectives.

"I've told everybody I've seen," Thomas said. "I still ask questions."

Hurst said that among the family the shooting is talked about almost everyday.

Hurst even contacted the newspaper before the anniversary of Stevens' death in the hopes of learning new information.

Thomas has worked with Hurst on trying to get media exposure for the shooting.

"I wanted to stir it up a little bit," Thomas said.  "I don't want to just let it go. Maybe there's somebody wanting to talk that wasn't willing to talk before because maybe they're in a different situation."

Sometimes she picks up the phone to call Stevens' home without even thinking.

"I dialed the number and it said it was no longer in service," Hurst said. "And I said, ‘My God, am I losing my ever loving mind?"

Hurst had watched her daughter change her life, having a stint in prison and overcoming cancer.

Stevens grew up in Cabarrus County and graduated from A.L. Brown High School.

But she was struggling early in her life and found herself convicted in Georgia on a robbery charge. During the robbery she was shot in the foot which left her disabled.

She left prison in 1982 and returned to Cabarrus County to be with her family.

Stevens had two children, including 22-year-old Deitra Nicole Moreno and 12-year-old April Brianna Stevens.

"I really think that she turned her whole life around with April," Thomas said.

Stevens had even started going to church, attending Highest Praise Family Worship Center in China Grove since about 1998.

When Stevens went to church she would take notes on the sermons. When the family went to the home they found at least a year's worth of sermon notes, Hurst said.

But it was about 2001 that Stevens learned she had cancer.

She went through treatments and her cancer had actually gone into remission a year before her death.

"She fought so hard to live for her kids and her grand kids," Hurst said. "She was a strong person, or she would have been dead a long time ago."

This is cache, read story here