Murder In The Black

On October 23, 1989, a car-phone call sent Boston into a frenzy. Charles Stuart claimed that a Black gunman had shot him and his pregnant wife, Carol. His accusation placed innocent Black men under suspicion and gave the city a story it was prepared to believe.
In this installment of If This Happened Now, Steph examines Charles’ lie, the people who paid for it and whether modern technology would expose him sooner—or give investigators more information to interpret through the same assumptions.
Carol DiMaiti Stuart was a 30-year-old Boston College graduate and tax attorney, not simply “the pregnant wife.”

Carol was about seven and a half months pregnant. Her son, Christopher, was delivered by cesarean section and lived for 17 days.

Charles’ description of a Black attacker sent police flooding into Mission Hill.

Detectives noticed early problems involving his route, the car’s dome light and its unusually clean back seat.

Alan Swanson spent approximately three weeks in jail but was never charged with Carol’s murder.

Willie Bennett was targeted through changing witness statements, raids and a lineup in which Charles claimed to be 99 percent certain.

James Moody, a Black man killed in Boston that same night, received far less attention.

Charles’ brother Matthew eventually told investigators that Charles had asked for help staging a robbery.

A 2023 Boston Globe investigation found that at least 33 people had heard Charles was responsible before Matthew went to police.

Modern phones, cameras and forensic testing could weaken the lie—but a false accusation could spread online even faster.

Boston formally apologized in 2023. In 2025, the city agreed to pay Willie $100,000 and Alan $50,000 without admitting liability.
Time Stamps:

00:01 — The call that sent Boston into a frenzy
02:29 — Introducing If This Happened Now
03:32 — Remembering Carol Stuart
04:25 — The shooting and Christopher’s 17 days
05:23 — An accusation built on race
06:23 — Mission Hill under suspicion
07:46 — Political pressure and early theories
09:14 — Questions investigators should have asked
10:09 — Problems with the route and car
11:06 — Alan Swanson and the tracksuit
13:27 — Willie Bennett, the raids and lineup
15:49 — Charles identifies an innocent man
16:17 — The Bennett family seeks accountability
17:12 — James Moody’s overlooked death
18:08 — Matthew Stuart and the recovered gun
19:13 — The 33 people who heard the truth
20:10 — Matthew goes to police
21:08 — No trial and unanswered questions
22:03 — The Boston Globe reinvestigation
23:29 — The unsupported insurance claim
23:56 — Phones, cameras and forensics now
25:53 — How the accusation could spread online
26:45 — Information versus interpretation
28:22 — The limits of lineup safeguards
29:19 — Body cameras and recorded interviews
30:18 — A false accusation travels farther now
31:15 — The apologies and settlements
33:36 — Where responsibility lies
34:35 — Evidence or the easiest suspect?
35:05 — Questions for listeners
If Carol’s murder happened now, which would move faster: the evidence exposing Charles or the accusation against a Black stranger? Would technology have protected Willie Bennett and Alan Swanson—or made the suspicion permanent online? Do you believe Charles acted alone?
Catch up on the earlier If This Happened Now episodes featuring Carlesha Freeland-Gaither and the Austin Ripper.
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Before Jack the Ripper, Austin had its own unidentified nighttime killer.
In 1884 and 1885, a series of brutal attacks terrorized Austin, Texas. Black women working as domestic servants were among the earliest victims. Their work placed them inside other people’s homes, but proximity offered little protection.
In this installment of If It Happened Now, Steph examines the Austin Ripper case, also known as the Servant Girl Annihilator murders. Who were the people behind the sensational name? How did race, gender, newspaper coverage, and investigative limitations shape the response—and the story we remember?
Then we bring the case into the present. Could DNA, surveillance cameras, and connected investigations have changed the outcome? And would the women targeted first receive the attention needed to stop the attacks sooner?
“The darkness helped him move. Indifference gave him time.”
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Join the conversation: If these attacks happened now, what would make the biggest difference: better technology or a faster response to the first victims?
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In this episode of Murder in the Black, Steph follows the urgent, multi-state search to bring Carlesha home. A witness who called police twice. Detectives who promised her mother they would find her. An ATM transaction, a dealership decal, and a GPS tracker that helped investigators close the distance.
At the center of every development was Carlesha: resisting, paying attention, and making decisions to survive nearly three days in captivity.
As we prepare for our new series, If It Happened Now, this case raises a question: With more cameras and digital evidence available today, how much still depends on someone recognizing a clue—and acting before it’s too late?
Content note: Discussion of kidnapping, violence, and captivity.
CHAPTERS
00:00 A camera captures the abduction
01:24 A promise to Carlesha’s mother
03:19 The attack and the witness who stayed
05:20 Carlesha fights back
07:13 Following the evidence
10:27 The search reaches Maryland
12:20 Identifying Delvin Barnes
13:38 A dealership connection changes the search
15:32 Her family waits for answers
17:56 A tracker reveals a location
18:26 Closing in—and bringing Carlesha home
21:20 The people behind every breakthrough
23:13 When evidence becomes public spectacle
25:12 The guilty plea and sentence
27:37 If it happened now
30:59 Missing Black women, urgency, and unequal attention
31:56 Centering Carlesha’s survival
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For the finale of Murder in the Black: Unsolved Mysteries, Steph examines two cases in which recovering a person’s body did not answer the most important question: What happened to them?
Ricky McCormick was found dead near a Missouri field in June 1999. Inside his pockets were two pages covered in handwritten letters, numbers and symbols. More than a decade later, the FBI publicly released the pages after its own cryptanalysts were unable to decipher them. But members of Ricky’s family questioned whether he could have written the notes at all.
Were the pages connected to Ricky’s death, a private form of shorthand—or simply an unexplained distraction from the investigation?
Sixteen years later, Henry McCabe disappeared after spending an evening with friends in Minnesota. During his final known hours, Henry’s wife received a disturbing voicemail filled with unusual sounds and fragmented speech. His body was eventually recovered from Rush Lake, but the discovery did not explain how he got there or what happened after he was dropped off that night.
The coded pages and unsettling recording have become the most recognizable details in these cases. But neither provides a complete story.
In this episode, Steph separates what is documented from what has been repeated online and returns to the question still facing both families: How did Ricky McCormick and Henry McCabe get from their final known locations to the places where they were found?
Timestamps
00:01 — Ricky McCormick’s mysterious handwritten pages
01:01 — Introducing the Unsolved Mysteries finale
02:29 — Why Ricky’s cause of death remained undetermined
03:27 — Reconstructing Ricky’s final movements
05:48 — Ricky’s family questions whether he wrote the pages
06:16 — Addressing Ricky’s criminal history
07:11 — The Florida trip and concerns that Ricky was afraid
08:38 — Hospital visits, Ricky’s final call and his last reported sighting
09:37 — Aunt Gloria remembers the last time she saw Ricky
11:52 — Decomposition and the limitations of the autopsy
13:16 — The FBI’s description of the mysterious pages
15:32 — Repeated characters, possible patterns and the absence of a translation
17:40 — The FBI asks the public for help
19:58 — Ricky’s relatives challenge the coded-writing narrative
22:08 — Investigative leads that never produced conclusive evidence
23:55 — How the notes became the center of Ricky’s story
26:41 — Introducing Henry McCabe
27:40 — Henry’s life, family and career
29:06 — The night out and the disputed gas-station drop-off
31:33 — The disturbing voicemail
33:36 — Search efforts and changes to the public timeline
35:31 — Henry’s body is recovered from Rush Lake
36:30 — Probable drowning without a complete explanation
38:50 — Questions about the drop-off, Henry’s keys and his wallet
41:43 — Remembering Henry beyond the recording
43:10 — Parallels to other unexplained deaths
45:03 — Closing the Unsolved Mysteries series
If you have information
If you have information concerning Ricky McCormick’s death, contact Crime Stoppers at 866-371-8477.
When discussing Ricky’s handwritten pages, focus on genuine handwriting samples or recognizable habits rather than unsupported online theories. A proposed translation is not evidence unless it can be independently verified.
Do you believe Ricky’s notes were connected to his death? What do you hear when you listen to Henry’s final recording? And which case from this three-part series stayed with you the most?
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In the second installment of Murder in the Black: Unsolved Mysteries, Steph examines the disappearances of Najah Ferrell in Indiana and Kierra Coles in Chicago.
Najah disappeared on March 15, 2019, the day she was expected to begin a new job at Panera Bread. She never arrived at work and failed to pick up her children—both out of character. Her belongings were later recovered near Interstate 465 and Lafayette Road, and her 2018 Nissan Altima was found abandoned in Indianapolis. Weeks later, human remains were discovered more than 100 miles away near Crown Point. DNA confirmed they belonged to Najah.
Investigators have never publicly explained how Najah traveled from Avon to Indianapolis, how her car and belongings came to be abandoned in separate locations, or how part of her remains ended up near Crown Point.
Kierra Coles was 26, approximately three months pregnant and working for the United States Postal Service when she vanished from Chicago’s Chatham neighborhood in October 2018. Expanded surveillance later showed Kierra with a man identified as a person of interest and withdrawing money from a Walgreens ATM at approximately 10:43 p.m. Her vehicle later returned to her neighborhood without her. The man was seen entering Kierra’s building and leaving with unknown items, but the timeline still does not reveal what happened after Kierra disappeared from view.
The cases are not publicly connected, but they share a frustrating pattern: cameras and physical evidence captured pieces of each woman’s final known movements without revealing what happened in the spaces between them.
IN THIS EPISODE
• Najah’s life as a mother of five, including three foster children
• The belongings recovered near I-465 and Lafayette Road
• Her abandoned Nissan Altima and the remains found near Crown Point
• The missing link between Najah’s home, vehicle, belongings and remains
• Kierra’s pregnancy and career with the Postal Service
• Surveillance showing Kierra with a man identified as a person of interest
• The 10:43 p.m. Walgreens ATM footage
• Kierra’s vehicle returning without her
• The purse, cellphone and packed lunch reportedly found in her vehicle
• The increased reward of up to $250,000 in Kierra’s case
• Why surveillance can document movement without providing an answer
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 — Najah’s disappearance
02:29 — Why these cases are paired
03:25 — Najah’s family and new job
07:01 — Belongings found near I-465
07:30 — Najah’s abandoned Altima
11:48 — Remains found near Crown Point
13:42 — The unexplained route through Indiana
17:33 — Questions surrounding Najah’s final hours
19:42 — Kierra’s life, pregnancy and postal career
21:07 — The surveillance timeline
21:35 — Walgreens ATM footage
23:14 — Kierra’s vehicle returns without her
26:55 — Kierra’s belongings are found
30:45 — Expanded surveillance released
32:41 — Reward increased to $250,000
35:48 — Why the cases are paired
37:14 — The limits of surveillance
40:08 — Final case recaps
42:33 — Closing and tip information
IF YOU HAVE INFORMATION
For information about Najah Ferrell’s movements, vehicle or belongings recovered near I-465 and Lafayette Road, contact Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana or the Hendricks County Communications Center.
For information concerning Kierra Coles, contact the United States Postal Inspection Service and reference case number 2693502.
Please share Najah and Kierra’s names, especially with anyone who lived in Indiana or Chicago when they disappeared. A detail that seemed insignificant at the time could help close one of the gaps in these timelines.
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