Matt Stewart

In the early morning hours of June 9th, 2009, a violent home invasion would take place in Mooresville, North Carolina…

Matthew Ryan Stewart was born on March 14th, 1978, in the town where he would spend his entire life: Mooresville, a decent-sized town in North Carolina's Iredell County, which is a rather-affluent suburb of Charlotte. Many refer to Mooresville as "Race City USA", due to it housing several NASCAR/IndyCar racing teams and drivers, and more than 30,000 people called it home as of the last census (in 2010).

Matt Stewart would graduate from Mooresville Senior High School, and eventually go on to earn an associate's degree in nursing from Mitchell Community College. But it was not an easy road to get there; Matt was reportedly involved in drugs during his early adulthood, something that he would express remorse for years later. However, according to those that knew Matt, these issues were just a minor roadblock for him, and he was able to rebuild his life around his burgeoning faith, becoming an avid Christian in his twenties.

I was able to speak to Freddie Wilson, the host of the Unforgotten podcast, who has spent the last couple of years researching Matt's life story. As you'll hear, he was able to learn plenty about the kind of person Matt was, and how he used his ever-positive attitude to become a force of good.

In the early 2000s, Matt would become enamored with a young woman from the church he was attending: a single mother named Angela Haire, who more commonly went by a shortened version of her first name, Angel. She had just recently given birth to her daughter, Hannah, when Matt and she started dating; within months, the two would be engaged to be married, and Matt would end up adopting Hannah and raising her as his own. Over the next few years, Matt and Angel would have two additional kids: a daughter and a son (whose names I'll refrain from using because they are still minors).

By all indications, the Stewarts were an extremely happy and content family, with both Matt and Angel having established careers of their own. Both Matt and Angel worked in the nursing field, with Matt working at the Lake Norman Regional Medical Center in Mooresville, while Angel worked at another hospital in Charlotte. Matt's coworkers would later recount that he didn't socialize much outside of work because he spent most of his free time with his family, and he wouldn't have had it any other way.

They lived in the Gabriel Estates subdivision in northern Mooresville, which was a relatively normal housing community in the more blue-collar section of town. While their house was located near a local two-lane highway, there was a house behind them that acted as a buffer, and they were surrounded on almost every side by other houses. Nothing about the location or layout of their home would indicate that those within had anything to fear...

As the clock crept past midnight in the early morning hours of June 9th, 2009, everything in the Gabriel Estates subdivision was quiet. Some neighbors would later recall feeling odd - stating that they felt uneasy in the early morning hours, like someone was watching them - but no one would be able to explain why, exactly... just that they felt off.

In the Stewart household, however, trouble was brewing. While the exact series-of-events have never been cleared up, we do have an approximate timeline of events which we can match up with witness statements.

Matt and Angel's oldest daughter, Hannah, was at a friend's house for a sleepover; a neighborhood friend, who lived just down the road, whom she had been friends with for some time. But the remaining two children were inside the home, along with Matt and Angel. Earlier that evening, Matt had gotten out of bed to grab the couple's young son and bring him into their bedroom, but they had since fallen asleep, and things were quiet inside the home.

Just after midnight, however, a dark presence emerged in the master bedroom, who - without warning, began shooting at the married couple asleep in their bed. Matt was reportedly hit by a bullet right away, but jumped up, and began struggling with the unknown intruder, wrestling him into the nearby bathroom, where a vicious scuffle would ensue. Angel, meanwhile, had been grazed in the wrist with a bullet, and would end up fleeing the home with her young son, who had been asleep in the bed with her, heading to a neighbor's home to call for help. That neighbor, Mike Lawson, would later tell reporters with WBTV that Angel showed up at his doorstep holding her young son, covered in blood:

"She rang the doorbell, and then she come to the door, and she looked at me and said she'd been shot."

At the neighbor's house, Angel would phone 911, with the call being received by local dispatchers at 12:45 AM. This is verified by the official call log, which showed that officers were dispatched within seconds, and arrived at the scene at 12:49 AM (just four minutes later). However, by the time they arrived, the scene inside of the Stewart home was dead silent, with there being no sign of any activity since Angel had come running out with her young son. There was no sign of the intruder (that had reportedly starting firing at the couple from their bedroom doorway), no sign of Matt (who had last been seen fighting off the gunman in order to save his family), nor of his and Angel's daughter - their middle child - who, by all accounts, was still inside of the home. Her presence inside of the home seemed to change everything in these vital minutes.

Over the next twenty or so minutes, more officers began arriving at the scene, and it became apparent that the situation inside of the Stewart home was not changing. There had been no sign of life inside, and authorities began to fear that a potential hostage situation was playing out in front of their very eyes. The Special Response Team was called to the location, and police would choose not to enter the home for some time; choosing to hold off on doing so until well after 2:00 AM, more than an hour after originally arriving at the scene.

It wasn't until 2:30 AM that officers decided to enter the home, and within moments, would discover the body of Matt Stewart. There, in the upstairs bathroom, his body was found covered in and surrounded by blood, the victim of an incredibly violent altercation - having died attempting to save the lives of his family, reportedly fighting off their attacker until his final breath.

But just a minute later, another call would come over the radio, proclaiming that a child had been found inside of the home, absolutely unscathed. Matt and Angel's youngest daughter had been left inside of the home during Angel's chaotic escape, but was brought out unharmed. In fact, it would later be reported that the child had slept throughout the entire ordeal... a bizarre note in an even more bizarre case, which began to unfold that balmy summer morning.

It was immediately apparent that Matt Stewart's death had been a violent one; the bloody crime scene left behind was proof enough of that. But the autopsy would reveal that Matt's death had been even more violent than originally expected, with him having been shot and stabbed several times in a gross act of overkill.

The autopsy would note that Matt had sustained gunshots to his head, neck, chest, back, and arm, with one gunshot hitting his spinal column, severing his brain stem; a wound that would have almost immediately killed him, if he wasn't already dead. In addition, he had been stabbed dozens of times - to his neck, jaw, ear, and head - with cuts and scrapes to his upper extremities pointing to a significant number of defensive wounds. There were also signs of blunt force trauma to several parts of Matt's body, which had likely been sustained during some of the other injuries; namely, when the unknown intruder had begun stabbing Matt, using significant force when doing so.

Here's Freddie, who discussed the specifics of the autopsy with a couple of forensic experts on his podcast, giving their own opinions on what may have caused this obscene level of violence:

Intriguingly, it was learned that two separate firearms had been used in the commission of this crime. During the autopsy, both .38 and .40 caliber bullets would be recovered from Matt's body, leading to the conclusion that two separate firearms had been used in the crime. Some theorized that this might have been due to there being two gunmen - perhaps one that came to the aid of the other when they started struggling with Matt - but authorities have released no information pointing in that direction over the past eleven years. As far as we know, there was just one killer - but this somehow resulted in Matt sustaining gunshot wounds from two separate firearms.

The day after the incident, Captain Thomas Thompson from the Mooresville Police Department would tell the press:

"Right now we just have nothing solid to go on. This is not the type of typical crime that we have in Mooresville and especially not in this neighborhood."

Police began expanding the crime scene from the known location of the crime - the Stewart home - to include their entire neighborhood: Gabriel Estates, a normal, middle-class housing subdivision in northern Mooresville, which was full of blue-collar families very similar to the Stewarts.

To make matters even more complicated, there was no sign of forced entry into the house, although the back door would appear to be unlocked; an abnormality, as they typically always made sure to lock up before they went to bed. It would be theorized that this was how the killer had made their escape - running off into the woods behind the house, and perhaps making their escape via the nearby highway (which, it should be noted, would not be impossible to get to from the Stewart home, but would be rather difficult because of the local flora).

Surprisingly, none of the Stewarts' neighbors recalled seeing or hearing anything out of the ordinary that night - at least, not until police officers began arriving just a few minutes before 1:00 AM. Despite Matt having been shot multiple times by rather large caliber handguns, none of his neighbors had reported hearing anything at all... nothing that indicated a struggle taking place, or even a single gunshot. One neighbor lived just down the street, and was reportedly awake at the time of the alleged shooting with an open window near them, and did not report hearing anything untoward that evening.

Despite there being a couple of neighboring houses located just a dozen or so feet away from the Stewart's home, in a quiet and sleepy subdivision, none of Matt and Angel's neighbors would recall hearing any gunshots or sign of a struggle that evening. However, as Freddie will explain, this might not be as strange as it sounds.

From the very outbreak of this story, it was reported that no one had seen the killer; not even Angel, Matt's wife, who initially claimed that she didn't get a good look at the person who had been shooting at her or Matt in their bedroom. According to statements made over the years, this unknown subject had not said a word or even made a noticeable sound before he starting firing at the sleeping couple, and Matt's quick reaction - jumping up and wrestling the shooter into a nearby bathroom - prevented Angel from getting a good look.

In interviews with detectives, Angel was unable to give any kind of description of this killer, other than the detail that he was a tall male. This wasn't really anything that investigators could include in a profile; allowing investigators to keep their options open moving forward, but doing little to narrow down the list of potential suspects.

Over the next couple of weeks, Mooresville Police officials would tell local residents to not be "overly concerned" with the crime, believing that no one else was in imminent danger of being harmed. This led to the popular theory that the killer was someone known to Matt and his loved ones, but that theory would get quickly overshadowed by the first and only named suspect in this case.

In the final week of June 2009, a killer began to haunt the residents of Gaffney, South Carolina, a small town about 70 miles southwest of Mooresville.

The first killing happened on June 27th, with the victim being a prominent peach farmer named Kline Cash, who was shot and killed inside of his own living room, with his wife discovering his body later that day. The second crime occurred just four days later (July 1st), with two more victims - 83-year-old Hazel Linder and her 50-year-old daughter, Gena Linder Parker - being found inside of the elder woman's home, having been bound and then shot. The third crime was reported just a day later (July 2nd), after 48-year-old Stephen Tyler was shot and killed inside his own furniture store. His body was discovered by his 15-year-old daughter Abby, who came in to check on her father; while doing so, Abby was shot and injured by the same assailant, dying from her wounds in the hospital just a couple of days later.

All five of these murders seemed to bear strange similarities: the victims were all shot and killed with a .25-caliber firearm, with some of their money and valuables being stolen by the offender. But strangely, not all items of value had been stolen; some had been suspiciously left behind at the crime scenes, indicating that theft wasn't the killer's primary motive. Because of this, no perceivable motive could be determined in the spree, with the crimes being attributed to random violence from a single individual.

As you can imagine, this rash of bizarre, violent killings would put small-town Gaffney, South Carolina in the national spotlight... leading to a frenzied manhunt for the killer, who had been seen by witnesses driving an older model Ford Explorer, and whose likeness was soon portrayed in police sketches distributed throughout the region.

On July 6th, 2009 - a little over a week after the spree began - a burglary-in-progress was reported in Dallas, North Carolina, which is roughly halfway between Mooresville and Gaffney. Here, witnesses in a quiet neighborhood noticed a suspicious Ford Explorer matching the Gaffney killer's vehicle, which had been parked outside of an abandoned house. Three people were going back and forth between the vehicle and the empty home, and police were called to speak to these individuals that evening.

Two of the three individuals were a couple of siblings, Mark and Sharon Stamey, who were known to police as a couple of transients that often squatted in abandoned homes like this one. They had been seen in the neighborhood before, and were known to avoid trouble for the most part. But it was the third person they were with - a large mountain of a man, who stood nearly seven feet tall and weighed at least 250 pounds - that raised eyebrows.

Not only did this individual match the description of the killer from Gaffney, but it soon became evident that this individual was attempting to avoid police suspicion. After officers arrived at the scene, this man would give them a fake name. They were eventually able to learn his real name, however: Patrick Tracy Burris, a recently-paroled inmate, who had violated the terms of his probation, and was being sought after for arrest.

Officers would attempt to apprehend Burris that evening, but in the brief struggle that would ensue, Burris would pull a firearm on them, shooting one officer in the leg (thankfully, a nonlethal injury). Subsequent shots were aimed at Burris, who was killed in a short-lived police shootout, dying before paramedics could arrive at the scene.

Almost as soon as Patrick Tracy Burris was identified by police that night, it became clear that he had likely been the previously-unidentified killer from Gaffney - who, despite matching the technical description of a serial killer, was more of a spree killer because of the short-lived window of his crimes (with there being no cool-down period between them). This made sense, given Burris' naturally impulsive behavior.

Burris had a long history of criminal activity, dating back to his early adulthood. He had committed offenses such as larceny, forgery, breaking and entering, blackmail, and extortion over more than two decades, with these offenses being stretched across multiple states in the southeast (Florida, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas). He had been in a North Carolina prison as recently as April of 2009 - about two months before this rash of killings - having served eight years for some prior offenses. In the months after his release from prison, he had fallen off of the grid, failing to check in with his probation officer (hence the warrant being issued for his arrest). However, he had seemingly begun to indulge in his darkest urges, obtaining a firearm and using it repeatedly over a one week period that summer.

It would later be learned through ballistics testing that the .25-caliber pistol that he used to shoot a police officer on the night of his death was the same weapon that had been used in all of the Gaffney killings. It was theorized that these killings had been committed to facilitate armed robbery, with Burris likely trying to steal money or valuables from the victims in order to procure methamphetamine for himself. However, it was believed that Burris' crimes could extend beyond that one week, with police being unable to trace his whereabouts for the preceding month or so.

At the time of Matt Stewart's murder, Patrick Tracy Burris had reportedly been in the Mooresville area; with him confirmed to have been in the greater Charlotte area that summer, and traveling through Mooresville on several occasions. He also had a prior history of breaking and entering, and had become evidently unhinged in the weeks after Matt's murder. Perhaps this indicated some kind of involvement in Matt's murder, with the event in Mooresville serving as a catalyst for his more violent behavior later this month.

Burris was also incredibly tall, standing 6'8" tall and having a stocky build, so he could match the rather-generic description of the shooter given by Matt's wife... but then again, so would several hundreds of men in the surrounding area.

Despite ballistics providing a clear link between Burris and the Gaffney killings, that wasn't the case when it came to Matt Stewart's murder. The only weapon that Burris had in his possession at the time of his own death was the .25-caliber pistol used in the Gaffney crimes, and that was not at all what had been used in the Mooresville crime (if you recall, Matt had been shot by a .38-caliber and .40-caliber pistol). However, newspapers would report that Burris had sold at least two separate firearms to acquaintances of his in the weeks before his death, but I can find no verification of that in the years since (nor any sign that they matched the murder weapons used in Matt's case, making it a rather moot point).

Police would eventually state that there was no connection between Patrick Tracy Burris and the still-unsolved murder of Matt Stewart, highlighting the fact that Burris' known murders had happened over the span of a single week, and all of these crimes took place just miles apart from one another in Gaffney. There was no indication that his spree had started one month prior, dozens of miles away, and no piece of physical or circumstantial evidence linking him to the murder of Matt.

Despite this, however, many in the area have come to believe that Burris was Matt's killer, with police simply not having enough evidence to make a public declaration. As far as I know, that is not the case... but police have refused to answer any questions about possible connections, due to them not wanting to compromise their ongoing investigation.

Two months after the senseless murder of Matt Stewart, authorities would reveal a doubling of the reward in the case, for any information leading to an arrest. This would prove to be just one of the few updates in the case over the years, which was followed closely by the release of a suspect sketch in January of 2010, nearly six months after Matt's murder.

With the release of this police sketch, authorities were disclosing information about this killer for the first time nearly half-a-year after the tragic loss of life. This killer was described as a tall, large-framed man who weighed approximately 250 pounds, with pretty average facial features. In the sketch, this man is bald, with a large forehead, narrow eyes that are set pretty widely apart, a flat large nose, and with stubble covering his rather square jaw.

No information was given about how police had come upon the necessary information needed for this sketch, but it was widely believed that Matt's wife Angel had been able to give this description of the potential offender months after the shooting.

Personally, I find the release of this police sketch to be a bit suspect, since witness recollections are often imperfect (and that's only amplified when you factor in weeks and months of post-traumatic stress). But when you factor in the time it took for police to release this rather vague sketch, it leads me to believe that this information might have not been rock-solid, to say the least. And then-Mooresville Police Chief Carl Robbins must have felt the same way, because shortly after this sketch was released, Robbins described it as "just one piece of the puzzle," and stressed that the sketch was just an artist's rendering of the suspect. As quoted in the Mooresville Tribune:

"It is detailed. But at the same time it's not to be confused with a photograph. So there might be some things that aren't exactly to scale and that kind of thing."

For years, the working theory ascribed to this case was that Matt Stewart was the victim of a home invasion-gone-wrong... perhaps a burglary that turned sour when the culprit decided to take aim at Matt and Angel in their bed. However, a lot of people have pushed back against this theory for a number of reasons.

To start, there was no sign of forced entry in the Stewart home that night. In fact, other than the unlocked back door, it was unknown how the intruder had gained entry (with the back door likely being unlocked because it had been how the killer escaped the home). To add on to this, there was no sign of anything being stolen - nothing of value was reporting missing after the murder (at least, nothing that investigators ever found). There were also no reports of break-ins in the neighborhood before or after the murder, which to me, would indicate that this wasn't just a burglar that got lucky by finding an unlocked back door. Freddie, the host of the Unforgotten podcast, would seem to agree.

I would also push back against the idea of this being a burglary-gone-wrong with a final thought: most burglars try to break into homes while the occupants are gone, in order to avoid trouble. I don't see why a burglar would break into a home with two adults and two children inside and then open fire on them before stealing anything. According to the official narrative, the killer was able to sneak into the house and make it upstairs without being seen or heard - and without leaving behind any trace of themselves or their methods. Why would they just begin shooting at the couple in their bed? To me, this theory doesn't make any sense.

At this point, I think it's worth diving into one of the more touchy parts of this story: the official narrative, as relayed by Matt's wife, Angel. This is a part of the story that Freddie has reported upon heavily on his own podcast, Unforgotten, and you'll hear him again in just a minute. However, before then, I'm going to try and lay out some of these confusing points, which remain points of contention today.

According to the official narrative, Matt and Angel were asleep in their bed when the tall gunman began shooting at them from the doorway to their bedroom. Wedged between them was their young son, who Angel grabbed and fled out of the house with, while Matt began wrestling the killer into a nearby bathroom. In this chaos, Angel was shot at least once in her arm, although at least one report would claim that she had been shot in her hand. This is a minor discrepancy on my part, but Angel herself admitted in her only public interview (released as part of a music video for a Christian musical act called Big Daddy Weave) that the wound simply required stitches, and didn't seem to be overly serious.

Yet, according to the Stewarts' neighbor, Matt Lawson - whose house Angel ran to after fleeing the shooter - both Angel and her son were covered in blood. It's possible that this had been caused by a simple gunshot wound to the wrist - which, according to some reports, was just a graze - but details about what, exactly, happened that night remain clouded in secrecy.

In the years since, some have also come to scrutinize Angel for her actions during the shooting. While fleeing to the neighbor's house with her son to get help and call 911, Angel - perhaps unintentionally - left behind her youngest daughter inside the house along with Matt and this unknown killer. If you recall, this daughter was left inside of the house for the better part of two hours, with police not entering the home until 2:30 AM (when they discovered that the daughter was still fast asleep).

In several online forums, commenters have questioned Angel's maternal instincts, but that's not really something that I consider my place to judge; after all, I'm not a parent, so I can't judge anybody else on their reaction to an ordeal like this. And also, having interviewed people that have suffered through traumatic ordeals themselves, I know that everyone faces adversity differently: fight or flight reflexes are impossible to predict, and I have no idea how I would react in a similar situation. However, it is worth noting that according to the Stewarts' neighbor - Matt Lawson, the same man whose house Angel fled to after the shooting - Angel did not mention that her youngest daughter was still inside of the house.

It's also worth mentioning at this point that Angel's mother, Brenda - Matt's mother in law - has become an important component of the narrative. As recounted by Freddie in his podcast, she told people connected to the case that on the night of the murder - about an hour or two prior - she woke up in distress. According to some people, she had had a bad dream; and according to others, she woke up with a bad feeling. Regardless, this encouraged her to travel to the Stewarts' home shortly before the shooting took place; although reports vary on when she showed up that evening, and what her intention for being there might have been.

On his podcast, Unforgotten, Freddie has attempted to verify this information from neighbors and those connected to the case.

Another cloudy piece of information in this story is the notion that Matt himself was looking to obtain a firearm in the months before his death. A handful of Matt's friends have spoken openly about him wanting to obtain a gun for home protection, specifically in the week before his murder (June of 2009), apparently asking a friend to help him pick out the proper gun. It's unknown if this was due to any perceived threat, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this.

Over the years, rumors have proliferated about Matt and his access to drugs. This seems to be based primarily on his early adult life, where he was self-admittedly involved in drug usage (and potential drug dealing). Rumors would begin to spread after his death that he had been involved in illegal prescription distribution as a nurse, using his proximity to drugs to obtain medications illegally and sell them to people in the area. However, it's also worth pointing out that these were just rumors, which have not been substantiated by any evidence whatsoever over the years. In fact, Matt's fellow coworkers at the hospital have openly dismissed these allegations, and it seems like these rumors were mainly propagated by those that didn't personally know Matt, but speculated about his case online.

Because Matt's murder remains unsolved, it's hard not to give a second look at his substance abuse issues in early adulthood. It's possible that his death might have been connected to these issues, but I think it's very unlikely - as does Freddie.

In 2018 - nearly a decade after Matt Stewart's still-unsolved murder - the Unforgotten podcast launched. Put together by Freddie, Unforgotten has become one of the few outlets to distribute information about this case over the past decade, and remains - without a doubt - the most comprehensive. In the podcast, Freddie explores not only the life and death of Matt, but details how he came to be familiar with the story.

During the making of this podcast - which spans two seasons and includes several bonus Q&A episodes - Freddie has been able to speak to several people close to Matt: his neighbors, coworkers, friends, and even family members. Early on, he was able to speak to Matt's oldest daughter Hannah, as well as Matt's sister - who inadvertently turned this story into a bit of an obsession for Freddie.

As you just heard, statements made to Freddie have indicated that certain family members know of a primary suspect - who was previously known to them - who police supposedly ruled out in the wake of the murder. However, during the making of Freddie's podcast, he was told by relatives of Matt that the killer was still out there... potentially even following along with the podcast. These family members would ask Freddie to take down the podcast; which, they alleged, was putting them all in danger. At one point, someone even threatened legal action against Freddie for the podcast, reiterating the claim that disclosing this publicly-available information was putting them all in danger, but would not relay any specific threats (and, when asked to weigh in, local law enforcement punted on the issue, simply claiming that these family members "had been through a lot").

All of this leads me to believe that more information might be known by select family members; in particular, those that claim their lives are in danger, but have released no knowledge about this threat to law enforcement. In the years since, they have not disclosed who they believe the killer to be, or why their lives are supposedly in danger, but remain enraged at Freddie for simply attempting to learn more about this case.

I can understand them all wanting to move on after such a tragic loss. While I can't really comprehend the severity of their tragedy, I have spoken to enough survivors of violent crime and the loved ones of victims to know how much resolution can mean. When it comes to Matt Stewart's case, the only person attempting to raise awareness or gather information seems to be Freddie, with no other outlet publishing an article about the case since 2011 or so.

What I can't understand is why these family members would want to shut down Freddie's podcast (especially since he has not taken any advertising and has not made any money from the podcast), using the threat of physical harm and legal ruin to do so. Because while Matt Stewart's life was tragically cut short, his killer is still out there, and can potentially repeat his level of violence against others. While we should always respect the privacy and wishes of victims and their families, we also need to remind ourselves that an incredibly violent offender has not been identified or held accountable for this savage act from June of 2009.

Even though Freddie has wrapped up work on the Unforgotten podcast for the time being, he continues to gather information in the case. And over the past few years, he has been able to learn a lot about the individual at the center of this story: Matt Stewart himself.

The Mooresville Police Department continues to oversee this investigation, more than eleven years after it began. However, in recent years, the department has been plagued with rumors of workplace misconduct and corruption, which reached a head in 2019. Last year, the MPD chief was forced to resign after being put on administrative leave along with a police captain, and two senior command staffers were demoted. They were just a portion of the punishments doled out after a lengthy internal investigation looking into claims of sexual and racial discrimination in the workplace over a prolonged period of time.

At the same time that this was unfolding, the ten-year anniversary of Matt Stewart's murder came and went, and - as you just heard Freddie recount - there was no kind of announcement or anything from local law enforcement. None of the governmental bodies attached to the case have commented on the case in nearly a decade, and if they are still actively investigating it, it's unlikely to be a high priority for them.

In fact, this story has not been reported on much at all over the past several years, with one of the lone exceptions being the Unforgotten podcast, as well as some press releases tied into that, as Freddie has tried to raise awareness for the case. In the two-plus years since he began work on Unforgotten, Freddie has attempted to raise awareness by reaching out to other journalists and investigators, unsuccessfully lobbying them to cover the case. It wasn't until just recently that Freddie and I touched base - thanks to Erica Kelley from Southern Fried True Crime, who put us in touch - and I began to learn about Matt's story.

I would love to continue covering this case in the near-future, and I would encourage anyone that knew Matt to reach out to me so that we can chat. I'm approaching the case as an open book, and would like to release more information about it in the near-future.

If you would rather reach out to Freddie, you can do so as well. Like I said, he continues to gather information in the case, and while he has no intentions of releasing additional episodes, his knowledge in the case is really unparalleled, and he can be found at the Unforgotten podcast website or directly at unforgottenpod@gmail.com.

If anyone listening has specific information about the murder of Matt Stewart, I would encourage you reach out to the Mooresville Police Department at 704-664-3311; or, if you'd rather remain anonymous, you can call Crimestoppers at 704-658-9056. The $11,000 reward for information should still stand, and can be claimed by anyone that gives information leading to an arrest.

If you are listening and just hearing about Matt Stewart's case for the first time, then I would encourage you reach out to the local leadership of Mooresville - the mayor, the police chief, the city council, anyone - and demand a relaunched or retooled investigation into this savage, tragic crime. Tell them you would like a dedicated cold case investigator to be brought in to handle the case, or that you would like the case to be handed off to some other law enforcement agency (perhaps the state bureau of investigation). Because the Mooresville P.D. have had eleven years to solve this crime, and failed to do so, it's time to give someone else a crack at it.

Until such a time, the story of Matt Stewart will remain unresolved.

Episode Information

Writing, research, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Special thanks to Freddie Wilson from the Unforgotten podcast for sharing this story with us

Published on on October 11th, 2020

Producers: Roberta Janson, Ben Krokum, Gabriella Bromley, Peggy Belarde, Quil Carter, Laura Hannan, Damion Moore, Brittany Norris, Amy Hampton, Steven Wilson, Scott Meesey, Marie Vanglund, Scott Patzold, Travis Scsepko, Aimee McGregor, Sydney Scotton, Sara Moscaritolo, Sue Kirk, Thomas Ahearn, Bryan Hall, Seth Morgan, Marion Welsh, Jo Wong, Patrick Laakso, Alyssa Lawton, Meadow Landry, Tatum Bautista, Teunia Elzinga, Michele Watson, Ryan Green, Stephanie Joyner, Dawn Kellar, and Elissa Hampton-Dutro