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  • They would be mayor

    The six people running for mayor in Denver’s 2019 election were fascinating in their differences, from a former Black Panther to the two-term incumbent. I profiled each one, including interviews at their homes. Readers reported that the pieces provided critical perspectives for their decisions. The first official words of Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s re-election campaign were defiant. […]

  • Shelter, unsafe

    I investigated reports of unsafe conditions at Denver’s largest homeless shelter. Our reporting showed that a lack of coordination among city agencies put hundreds of people at risk of catastrophe. Later, the leader of Denver’s Road Home was transferred and I reported on complaints about his inexperience and leadership style. More recently, a city audit found […]

  • “It’s a dragnet”

    One of my first larger pieces for The Denver Post, this investigation of Denver’s curfew system involved reviews of court and police records, hours in court and nights on Federal Boulevard. We found a significant and increasing police focus on Latino neighborhoods, due in part to a change in staffing strategy. The city administration has […]

  • The cyclist who did everything right

    This piece began as a traffic report about a cyclist injured by a driver in a horrific crash. It became a story about how and why human psychology endangers cyclists on the road. Later, Gary Suydam won $52.5 million in a jury verdict. Lisa Suydam waited just before 5 p.m. on a warm winter Friday, wondering […]

  • The big one

     I combined maps, analysis and on-the-ground reporting to explain why a flood-control project became immensely controversial in Denver — and to provide realistic answers to residents’ fears. It would start in the streets, water beading together on the pavement of Park Hill and sloughing into the gutters and underground pipes. It might take an hour before […]

  • High on Stoner Hill

    This is my first cover story for Westword, Denver’s alt-weekly, published in December 2015, a few months after my arrival here. The regulars on Stoner Hill tell legends about the place. They say the gentle mound’s grassy curve conceals garbage or haunted graves — maybe both. It’s the kind of spot discussed with some reverence […]

  • Without heat: Dontay’s story

    This story was my last investigation for The News & Observer. It began late in 2014, when Renee Pinkney showed me evidence that her son, Dontay Jones, was living in unacceptable conditions. Jones has a disability and is a “ward” of Wake County, meaning the government is his legal guardian. Thanks to his mother’s diligent efforts, […]

  • Chatham Park is Huge

    This story about a massive development proposal first appeared in The News & Observer in 2014. The town of Pittsboro approved Chatham Park’s master plan on June 9, 2014. Above, Pittsboro as it stands today. CHATHAM COUNTY — Bob Epting’s tour-guide narration cut in loudly over the headsets as his Piper Cub droned a few […]

  • Grandpa and the Spaniards’ War

    Tablet Magazine ran this story about my retracing of part of my grandfather’s youth. This summer I stood with some 80 people on a hilltop outside Madrid, listening as our guide narrated the movements of fascist troops and Republicans through the olive groves and crumpled tan valleys below. Our number included a high-school teacher, a documentary crew, a […]

  • People

             

  • Dentists & death

    This investigative piece ran in The News & Observer in November 2013. I wrote shortly thereafter about another apparently sedation-related death. The cases prompted the state’s dental authority to re-examine its rules about dental sedation. CARY — Dr. Toni Mascherin’s parting letter to her Cary dental patients said that she was retiring from her long […]

  • Our Icelandic Music Video

    Elisa and I got hooked on this song by our friend Jesse Wooten during our trip around Iceland. We filmed a lot of shaky footage, which I edited into this somewhat self-indulgent bit of video. I’m proud of how it came together, and I hope it does some justice to Jesse’s music and this wonderfully […]

  • Run to believe

    I write often for Walter Magazine, a glossy pub about life in Raleigh. A few of my stories have been about sports in which I’m not an expert, for better or worse. In this case, a certain degree of removal allowed me to focus on the social structure and bonds that brought a decades-long series […]

  • The Last Unicorn

    This miniature documentary piece is the first product of a new model I tried out at The News & Observer. Basically, I found experienced videographers who wanted to explore journalism, and together we looked for efficient and striking ways to tell visual stories. “The Last Unicorn,” is about a man at the end of an […]

  • Lumberton cheeseburgers forever

    This ran in Our State in August 2013. I’ve edited it a bit from their version. If you want to know the story of the Dixie Drive-In in Lumberton, it’s best to ask George Stevens before the burgers hit the flat-top grill and carhops hustle the day’s first orders out a stubborn front door. George […]

  • Gone Falconing

    This story ran in Walter Magazine in February 2014. The hawk tenses on Bill Davis’s glove, eyes focused and brown-feathered wings wrapped tight around her body, and launches into flight. Her wings rear up, flashing the bird’s white underside, and her red tail feathers flare as she pulls herself through the air, quieter than a […]

  • Photo essay: Hitched by the man

    I take a drive almost every night I work, usually at 7:15 or 9:15, to a place south of Raleigh. I drive past the cottages at the edge of downtown, past the huge factory with the smokestacks and the clouds, which supposedly makes dog food, down the blank highway to the Wake County Detention Center. […]

  • Upstream/downstream/politics

    People argued about Jordan Lake before it existed, and they argue about it now. The planners knew 40 years ago that the trouble wouldn’t stop when the dam was built and the churches were relocated, or even when people forgot that someone actually built the 28-mile long lake. They knew more than anything that they’d […]

  • Horrified in public by boys

    This ran in The News & Observer. I tried to address an issue that I believe school systems and law-enforcement haven’t caught up with yet: The potential for abuse to go viral through social media, the same way photos and videos can. This new kind of bullying exponentially multiplies the number of people involved, and […]

  • One in 600,000,000

    A different edit of this story appeared in The Cary News and The News & Observer in January 2013. I had first heard of Michael Mendy’s case a year earlier, through his obituary, when the reasons for his death still were unclear. In the months afterward, his doctors and his mother realized the awful rarity […]