Nell Cropsey: A Murder That Still Haunts North Carolina

By Melody Gwyn and Darlene Hildreth

Ella Maude “ Nell”

Cropsey was born in July of 1882, the third of nine children born to William and Mary Cropsey. The Cropseys were from an old family in Brooklyn, New York. William, his wife and children left the Big City in 1898 and moved to 1109 Riverside Ave in Elizabeth City, North Carolina on the banks of the Pasquotank River. They adjusted well in their new Southern community, where William was elected judge.

Two of his daughters, Nell and Ollie, were beautiful, fresh faces in Elizabeth City, and soon the sisters were noticed by the local young men. Ollie began a relationship with a local admirer named Roy Crawford, whom she liked well enough. He was funny, and a good friend, but there were no sparks. Nell was courted by Jim Wilcox, son of the local sheriff. At first, Nell wasn’t interested, mostly because he was too short for her taste. However, his full lips, mustache, and quiet, southern charm won her over. By November of 1901, Nell and Jim had been in a relationship for two years.

Her sisters, Ollie and Lettie, who often chaperoned the couple, couldn’t understand what Nell saw in Jim. They felt Jim lacked ambition. He had dropped out of college after only one year. And what’s more, Jim was terribly dull compared to their sister. But he made Nell laugh. Besides, she had enough personality for the both of them. Nell was lively and fun; chaste but flirtatious and hopelessly optimistic.

The couple enjoyed row boat rides together, evening concerts, and walks along the riverside. Nell told Jim stories about her childhood home in New York. Jim told her about growing up in Elizabeth City. After a year, Nell began to anticipate a marriage proposal… but he never even broached the subject. She tried to be patient but grew disheartened by his dawdling.

Nell wondered if she was being strung along, and felt that she alone was carrying their relationship. She decided to take a step back. She began subtlety flirting with men in Jim’s presence, but he didn’t seem to notice. When he visited Nell on Thursday evenings, she no longer fact was blatantly ignoring him. There they sat, the two of them in the same room, but hardly trading two words. The tension was surely thick. feeling rather pleasant. Nell emphatically disagreed with that opinion, adding that she would rather freeze to death! got up to the room she shared with Nell, noticed her sister was not there yet. Ollie assumed she was still outside talking with Jim. excitedly told him about her week, but instead waited for him to speak. As a result, they mostly sat in silence. When that got old she ignored Jim altogether, conversing only with her sisters. She hoped he’d sense that he was losing her and spark passion in him, but he was oblivious. Nell now found Jim tiresome and told her sisters she wanted to move on.

In the early days of the dawning twentieth century, courtship often involved visits in the young lady’s home with various members of the household around to chaperone the couple. This would avoid any appearance of indecency.

One Wednesday evening in November 1901, Jim Wilcox arrived at the Cropsey house for yet another visit with Nell. Nell was looking very much forward to a trip she was planning to take to New York that very Saturday, so she was busy mending a coat she planned to take along. She did not seem to have much to say to Jim, and in

On this particular evening, Nell and Jim were in the company of parents, siblings, and even a visiting cousin from New York. Nell’s sister Ollie and her beau, Roy Crawford, were also courting on this evening. At some point during the visit, Roy commented to Nell that she was, “looking mighty sweet tonight.” Whether this riled Ollie or not is unknown. Later, there was a bit of peculiar conversation when cousin Carrie brought up the subject of suicide. Jim replied that he would prefer to drown. He had come close to it once and found the

After all the bizarre suicide conversation, Jim decided it was time to head home as his mama would be looking for him and it was now almost eleven o’clock. On his way out, he rolled a cigarette and asked Nell if she might join him on the porch so they could have a word in private. She got up and went out to the porch with him without a word. Ollie could hear them talking out on the porch but she could not hear what was being said.

As it neared eleven thirty, Ollie decided it was time to retire and Roy said his goodbyes. Ollie then headed up to bed, but when she

Melody and Darlene are Southern, Christian women who met at their local homeschool community. They became fast friends who discovered a shared interest in true crime. Once a week, they meet for coffee and take turns telling each other fascinating, historical true crime stories on their podcast. For more information, visit their website at www.hardtimesandtruecrimes.com.

Melody, married to Tim for over three decades, has spent the bulk of her parenting years homeschooling her five children, while simultaneously working a side hustle or two. She became interested in true crime as a teen after discovering a local author’s books at the library. Her love of reading, writing, and murder mysteries converged when she met Darlene and they discovered their mutual desire to produce a podcast telling true crime stories. Since she is the “Type-A” personality in the partnership, she takes care of the filing, back-ups, and techie stuff. This also involves trying to keep Darlene organized and on track while they try out her rather creative and impressive ideas.

Darlene is a true-crime podcast fan as well. As much as she loves to hear good stories, she loves to tell them! She loves Southern culture, history and a good story! For her fifteenth birthday, her G-pa gifted her an Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. She owes her fascination of psychology, true crime and fear of the dark to him. Darlene has been married to her husband for twenty-five years. They have four children together and have spent the majority of the past twenty-six years homeschooling. This year Curtis and Darlene were blessed with two daughters-in-law and their first grand baby.

Suddenly there was a commotion outside. A neighbor woke the family, yelling for William Cropsey, raising the alarm that someone was trying to steal the Cropsey’s pigs. The dogs were barking and raising a ruckus. It was now around twelve thirty. As the family began to rise, Ollie saw her father getting his gun. She warned him not to shoot because Nell and Jim were still out in the yard. But once the commotion had died down, it was apparent that Nell and Jim were not in the yard. In fact, there was no sign of dear Nell anywhere. Nell had vanished. n

What happened to Nell?

Listen to the full episode of our podcast about Nell Cropsey’s disappearance and murder at hardtimesandtruecrimes.com

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