Watauga investigators tie unsolved 1972 triple homicide to 'Dixie Mafia'

Watauga County investigators believe they finally know who killed three members of a Boone family in 1972.

Bryce Durham, his wife Virginia, and 18-year-old son Bobby were strangled to death in their home during a snowstorm 50 years ago this month. The case had been unsolved, but new evidence ties the murders to a group of men known as the “Dixie Mafia.”

The lone survivor of the four suspects, Billy Wayne Davis, is serving a life sentence in Georgia for crimes he committed there. In an interview with Watuaga County investigators, Davis implicated Billy Sunday Birt, Bobby Gene Gaddis and Charles David Reed in the murders, saying it was a hired hit. All three of them have since died.

Davis, now 81, says he did not enter the house and acted as a getaway driver. 

Investigators say if the Boone killings were a hit, as Davis says, it's not clear who solicited the crime.

The Sheriff's Office says investigators met with family members of the victims in November to inform them of their conclusions.