Name: Horace Daniel Mauney
Gender: Male
Burial Date: 04 Apr 1983
Burial Place: Kings Mtn., North Carolina
Death Date: 02 Apr 1983
Death Place: Charlotte, Mecklenburg, North Carolina
Age: 51
Birth Date: 17 Jul 1931
Birthplace: Cleveland, North Carolina
Occupation: Truck Driver Self Employed
Race: White
Marital Status: Divorced
Spouse's Name:
Father's Name: Guss Mauney
Father's Birthplace:
Mother's Name: Hester Cook


KINGS MOUNTAIN - Lot 2414 in Mountain Rest Cemetery is unmarked. There is no tombstone, no indication that Horace Daniel Mauney was buried here in April 1983. The names of two adjacent plots do not carry the name Mauney. No tombstones anywhere near lot 2414 carry that name.

Mauney was 52 when his brother, Ernest, found him unconscious - his skull bludgeoned - on March 1, 1983, in a mobile home

The circumstances surrounding his death remains as much a mystery as the unmarked lot in which he was buried.

Gaston County Police ruled Mauney's death a homicide in 1983. There were few leads. Nobody came forward. Years slipped by. Witnesses died. Mauney's killer remained unknown and the police trail went cold.

Last month, police reopened the case. One recent afternoon at police headquarters, Detective Sgt. Chris Reynolds held up the entire Mauney case file - a handful of documents stapled together in a plain manila folder.

A few stapled sheets of witness statements recorded 25 years go, represents all the evidence police have to go on.

Capt. Calvin Shaw picked a more recent murder file. It contained hundreds, maybe thousands, of papers stacked in the kind of oversized notebooks lawyers like to stack in their offices.

"The file isn't that big, but that doesn't mean we don't care or that we've forgotten," Shaw said. "We want to close this case as much as any other."

"My brother Les called me and I went down there - went to the hospital in Charlotte," said William Mooney, brother to Horace.

William Mooney, 71, currently lives in Festus, Mo. He was living in Pevely, Mo., the day he learned his brother was nearly killed.

"He was in a vegetative state. Never did say anything to us. They said somebody hit him over the head. He died two or three weeks later."

Horace Mauney actually died about four weeks later at then-named Charlotte Memorial Hospital, according to an obituary.

"My other brother Ernest got a big insurance settlement and Ernest always had Horace handle his money," William Mooney said. "I don't have any idea how much Ern got. All I know is what my brother Les told me and he didn't say much - didn't know what happened. Nobody really knew what happened. Still don't."

The police file and previous Gazette articles indicate that Horace Mauney, his brother Ernest Mauney and four other men were drinking the night of Feb. 28, 1983, according to police and family reports.

At some point, Ernest passed out in another room and awoke to his brother's gasping. Thinking perhaps Horace was vomiting, Ernest went back to sleep.

The next morning Ernest found his brother unconscious, almost dead.

"We don't have statements or anything to indicate there was any kind of argument that night," Reynolds said.

Horace Mauney's skull had been crushed. His wallet and the $250 inside was missing. Police would later find the empty wallet near N.C. 161.

The four men at the party that night, other than the Mauney brothers, were Howard Welch, James Carroll, Dennis Sessoms and Torrence Johnson. Police are having trouble finding the men. Detectives want to interview everyone at the drinking party, Reynolds said.

It's unclear if any of the four men not related to Ernest or Horace were present the following morning.

But the detective admitted that may be impossible. Some of them may be dead. Police have yet to locate any of the four men.

Police say they're willing to investigate any and all new leads in the case.

"We just don't have a lot to go on," Reynolds said.

Horace Mauney was one of six boys and three girls born to Augustus Mauney and Ester Cook Mauney. There was David, Ernest, William, Horace, Gus Jr. and Lester. Lilly, Ada and Betty were the girls.

All are now dead except for William Mooney in Missouri.

Augustus Mauney served in World War I before he started cotton farming in Kings Mountain. According to the accounts of his surviving son, Gus Sr. was a tough man.

He farmed 26 acres of rough land, his son said. He had a plate in his head, shrapnel from the war he would never mention to his sons, William said. He couldn't read or write.

"That's probably why my name is spelled the way it is instead of M-A-U-N-E-Y," William said. "But he worked hard every day and when he told us boys to do something, believe me, we done it. No if, ands or buts. We boys could kind of con mom, you know, but not dad."

Horace Mauney was born into a house with no electricity.

"We didn't get that until I was about 10 or 11," William recalled. "We were independent people. We liked doing things outside anyway. Horace liked the outside. He was a good hunter."

Horace was a skilled rabbit hunter and knew how to work a plow, his brother said. And he was a practical joker in his youth.

"I remember you'd be out with the plow and Horace would come up behind you and push you in the creek," William said. "He loved doing that. I don't think he ever did that to dad though."

William would join the service at the onset of World War II, right about the time Augustus died at the age of 55 of pneumonia.

Horace would work odd jobs. William remembers his brother working construction. A Gazette obituary lists his profession as a truck driver.

Horace's first wife was Betty Carpenter. Around the time Horace married he found religion, his brother said.

"He had four or five stations he would preach on," William said. "He found the Lord, became a preacher. Before that he was a lineman. Went all over Virginia, Hawaii even. Big bucks. Made big bucks for a construction worker I always thought."

But Betty was sick, though the pair didn't know at the time. She died of breast cancer a few years before Horace died.

"When she died he just did a 360," William said. "He just went to drinking. That's what my brothers said. I wasn't down there. If they hadn't hit him over the head like they say it would have taken two of three fellas to take him down. If you got Horace stirred you got a hornet's nest."

William considers Missouri his home now.

"It was a mess down there," he said. "I got away and stayed away."

"We're not sure that trailer park is even there anymore, the trailer isn't," Reynolds said. "This is a part of town that has changed since then."

Police say the trailer was located somewhere off Lake Montonia Road, just south of N.C. 161, on a dirt road near what is now called Mountain Crest Road. It is in the southern Kings Mountain area and very close to the Cleveland County line.

Police believe the trailer was located on what is now called Lewis Curry Road.

Further befuddling police are outdated maps. The city of Kings Mountain has since annexed the area, Reynolds said.

The exact location of Mauney's trailer may remain a mystery unless someone comes forward, police said.

Either way, the chances of collecting new physical evidence remains a long shot given the elapsed time.

Maybe someone will remember something, Reynolds said.

"We're committed to these cases - the family needs closure," Capt. Shaw said.

The cemetery where Horace is buried is just a few miles down the road from where he was found beaten nearly to death.

"I'm glad the police are looking at it again," William said. "I know whoever done this, I know that sucker is running around. But 30 years is a long time. They might be dead. But I've always felt somebody knew something. I guess we might never know."

Just as Mountain Rest Cemetery passers-by would never know who lies in the unmarked grave on plot 2414.