Eastburn Family Murders

On Mother’s Day in 1985, Katie Eastburn and 2 of her daughters, 5-year-old Kara and 3-year-old Erin, were found dead in their Fayetteville, NC home. They had been brutally murdered 3 days before and the only survivor in the house was 21-month-old, Jana. Left in her crib for 3 days, Jana was spared the same fate as her mom and sisters. Their attacker, Tim Hennis would go on to be convicted and sentenced to death and then acquitted AND THEN convicted to death again in a military court-martial. He and his supporters continue to maintain her innocence, but it’s hard to argue with DNA.

Discovering the Eastburns

On Mother’s Day 1985, Bob and Jeanette Seafeld noticed that their neighbors, the Eastburns, had newspapers piling up. And while the Fayetteville Observer is a lackluster newspaper, this was unlike the Eastburns not to at least bring the paper in. Not to mention the family station wagon had not moved in days. The Seafelds had last seen Kathryn Jean Eastburn who everyone called Katie and her daughters since Thursday night. Katie had brought 2 of her 3 daughters (1 was already asleep, so she was left in the house) over to borrow some milk for the girls’ breakfast in the morning. They came over around 7:45 pm and were headed back next door to their house by 8 pm.

The Seafelds went over to their neighbors’ house and rang the doorbell. There was no response, but they could hear the baby crying. The Seafeld’s had lived next to the Eastburns for a while and they would even later refer to Katie Eastburn as “the most devoted mom [they’d] ever seen.” She was not a woman to ignore a screaming child or leave the baby home alone (plus the family station wagon was in the driveway) so when the Seafelds heard the baby, but got no answer to the door, they decided to call the police.

The police came to the house at 367 Summer Hill Road and did the same as the Seafeld’s; rang the bell and knocked. At first they heard nothing. Then they started walking around the house and that’s when, through the window, they saw the baby standing in her crib. An officer opened the unlatched window to that room and climbed in. He grabbed the 21-month-old baby girl, Jana who was screaming in her crib and handed her to Bob Seafeld who took her next door to his wife. Jeanette changed Jana’s diaper which she had been in for the better part of 3 days and grabbed an old t-shirt to put on the little girl. Jeanette took Jana to the kitchen and got a glass of milk.

Jeanette said that Jana was basically inhaling this milk, but she kept throwing up. Jeanette also noted that the baby’s teeth were black and assumed perhaps it was from dehydration and malnutrition. An ambulance was called for her and she was spirited off to the hospital where doctors would determine that baby Jana was within 2 hours of death. Unfortunately, despite being in this near-death condition, Jana was considered “the lucky one.”

After the officer handed Jana over to the Seafeld’s they opened her bedroom door that led to the hallway. They immediately smelled the stench of death.

First, they came across 3-year-old Erin Eastburn who was on the floor of her parents’ bedroom. She had been stabbed multiple times in the chest and her throat had been cut so deeply that she was almost decapitated. Next, in the same room, was Katie Eastburn. She was naked and had been stabbed many times in the chest, and her throat was also slit. Katie’s jeans and panties would be found in the living room. Her panties had been cut off. Finally, police found 5-year-old, Kara Eastburn in her bed under a Star Wars blanket. She had died the same way as her mother and little sister; stabbed and her throat slit.

Police were horrified and simultaneously stumped. The Eastburns were a good military family and everyone would describe Katie in glowing terms.

Telling the Husband

Once the bodies were discovered, there was another issue of having to tell Katie’s husband of 11 years, Captain Gary Eastburn. After they married, he enlisted in the Air Force. By 1985, Gary was a captain in the Air Force supervising air traffic control at Pope Air Force Base next to Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina and had just landed a job as an Air Liaison Officer at an Air Force base near London, England.

The Eastburn family was preparing to move or “PCS” (Permanent Change of Station), but before the new job, Gary had to go to Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama (500 miles away) for 10 weeks for an officer training course. Gary had originally considered having his family come with him to Alabama, but Kara was in kindergarten and they didn’t want to pull her from school. He also didn’t want to uproot them for these 10 weeks, and then again when they moved.

Gary had been there for 9 weeks and had been keeping up with his family via handwritten letters and landline telephone calls from the barracks’ payphone. Every Saturday morning at 8 am like clockwork, Katie called the phone and they talked. Katie never missed a call. But that Saturday, May 11th, Katie did miss the call. Gary was concerned. Katie was described by him and others as the love of his life and he knew she wouldn’t miss this call on purpose. Plus she had made all 9 previous calls and this was the first Saturday she didn’t call. Why would she miss the last one before he came home?

At 8:15 am, Gary decided that he would call her (collect), but she didn’t answer. He had to go to work, but as soon as he could he called again. At 11 am, he still got no answer. He tried once more just after noon, no answer. By this point, Gary is spiraling into panic so he called a friend and had them go by the house. The friend went to the house and there was no answer. Then Gary knew he had to call the police. He asked the Fayetteville police to do a welfare check, but when they got there and also got no answer and there were no lights on or anything, they left a note for Katie to call her husband and they moved on.

Gary knew everything was wrong. This was not going to end well. So, when the police detective called Gary that Sunday, he basically answered the phone with “How many of them are dead?” Police were thrown at that reaction. They told him that they couldn’t give him any information over the phone, but there had been a death in the family and he needed to come home right away. Gary caught a plane that night and spent the 2-hour flight fretting about what had happened to his family. Once he was back in Fayetteville, Gary was told about the murders of his 2 daughters and his wife (the love of his life). The one bright spot was that Jana had survived. Gary said that Jana saved him. She was his reason for living. He called her his “1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th priorities.”

Investigation

Detectives Jack Watts and Robert Bittel were the leads on the case, and they began their investigation at the house. Despite the horrific injuries to all 3 Eastburns, there was oddly very little blood. The lab was called in to spray luminal and found that whoever had murdered the 2 little girls and their mother and left Jana to die had spent a significant amount of time cleaning up. The murderer also stole Katie’s wallet.

The autopsies would show defensive wounds on all 3 victims. Katie’s autopsy showed that she had been tied by her wrists and she’d been raped. Swabs were taken and lots of other DNA evidence that wasn’t really useful in 1985 was collected and stored. With the murderer still on the loose and the neighborhood in fear, detectives were quickly desperate for a lead. So desperate in fact that they turned to the only survivor, 21-month-old, Jana Eastburn. They had a child psychologist show her pictures of her mother (she actually asked Jana who that was and Jana said “Mommy” and gave the picture a kiss) and sisters and talk to her to see if she had maybe seen or heard anything that she could communicate to them and break this case open.

As you’d expect, the not even 2-year-old wasn’t able to give them much information, but the psychologist did note in her report that poor Jana had seemingly heard something. The psychologist reported that Jana said, “hide from the burglar so he doesn’t get us” and “he’s going to get me” and “shhh.”

Two Big Leads

Only days after the discovery of the bodies, a man came forward with a story about his 3:30 am walk on the morning of Friday, May 10th. 20-year-old Patrick Cone reported that he was walking through the neighborhood on his way to his dad’s house. While walking past the Eastburn’s, Cone saw a tall white man coming from the Eastburn yard. He said the man was wearing almost all black: black toboggan hat, black member’s only jacket over a white t-shirt, black jeans and shoes with a bag over his shoulder. Cone said that he was within 3 feet of this man and that the guy told Cone, “I’m getting an early start today” or “leaving a little early this morning” and walked on by Cone to get in his white Chevy Chevette.

Cone had gotten such a good look at the man that he was able to work with a sketch artist and give a very detailed description. A composite was created, but before it was released to the public, detectives found out more information that could help lead them to a suspect. Katie had written to Gary that she had met with a “nice” man to sell their family dog.

Since they were PCSing to England and their English Setter, Dixie would have to be quarantined, they decided to rehome her even though they very much loved her. Katie had placed an ad in the 1985 Fayetteville version of Facebook Marketplace, “B-Line Grab Bag” (like a classifieds) looking for a good home for their sweet Dixie. The Tuesday (May 7th) before their bodies were found, a man had answered their ad. Now the police were looking for this man.

Enter: Timothy Hennis

On the day that the sketch was released and the police called for information about the man that adopted Dixie to come speak with them (they didn’t know if the composite and the dog adopter were one man or two different men), 27-year-old Sergeant Timothy Hennis and his wife Angela were home eating lunch. They saw the composite and heard the call for information about the dog adoption and were like, uhh…we adopted that dog…..

As soon as they saw this, they gathered up their things and their newborn daughter and headed to the police station to provide any information they could. When he entered the station and detective Bittel saw him, he was floored by how closely Hennis resembled the composite sketch. Hennis spoke with officers (waved his Miranda Rights), and told them how he had acquired the dog and in turn how he met Katie Eastburn.

Hennis told authorities that his wife had seen the ad for the dog in the paper, and he called about it. Police would later discover a message on the answering machine from a woman named Angela about adopting the dog. He told Katie Eastburn he would come by Tuesday, May 7th, and he did.

Hennis drove his white Chevy Chevette to the Eastburn house to meet Dixie and talk to the “Dog Lady” (Katie – he only referred to her as “Dog Lady”). She invited him into the house, and he said he stayed for a little bit to talk to Katie and kind of ease her mind about handing over their dog. Hennis said that she explained that they were moving overseas and that her husband was away at officer training now. Hennis said that he asked if he could use their bathroom which she allowed, and after that, he leashed up the dog and started to leave. He tells detectives that on his way out Katie told him she’d call him later that week, like Thursday, to see how Dixie was doing.

Hennis said he went home with the new dog and at some point he told his wife that he thought it would be a good idea if he dropped her off at her parents’ house for the weekend since he had to work double shifts. Hennis then tells detectives that, on Thursday he took his wife to her parents’ house about 90 miles from Fayetteville, and then headed back home. He said that when he got home he went to bed right away. Hennis retells that the “Dog Lady” called him Thursday as well, they had a quick conversation about the dog and that was it. That weekend he said he worked and cleaned the house, and then Monday he picked up his wife and baby.

Hennis willingly provided all the samples of all the bodily fluids and hair. While he was at the station, detectives showed a photo line up including Hennis to Patrick Cone who was already at the station as well. Cone immediately picked Hennis. Without hesitation. Then cops drove him around the parking lot and asked him if he saw the car he’d seen that night. He identified Hennis’ car. They let Hennis go home for the time being. They needed to get some warrants. And around 1 am, police executed both an arrest warrant and a search warrant on the Hennis house. Officers basically destroyed the house looking for evidence, but found nothing.

However, this lack of evidence would soon seemingly be explained.

BOOM ARRESTED! But Also the Investigation Continues

Now that he is arrested, Hennis’ mugshot was plastered in the newspaper. As people do, they came forward with stories about Hennis. One was Hennis’ ex-girlfriend, Nancy, who claimed that on Thursday, May 9th, Tim Hennis came to her house while her husband was out of town. She said that they talked for a while before Hennis tried to make a move. She rejected him and he eventually left. Nancy claimed that Hennis did have a black member’s only jacket, but she was unsure if he was wearing it that night.

Next person to come forward was the owner of a dry cleaners who said that Hennis brought in a black member’s only jacket on Friday, May 10th, but there was nothing suspicious like blood on it. Then, some of Hennis’ neighbors came forward to say that he had been burning something in an oil drum. They said that he never did that, because their trash was picked up weekly and he never burned yard waste either. They claimed that he had been pouring flammable liquid on the fire and the flames were 5-6 feet high. According to the neighbors, he had burned things in the barrel for most of the day.

It was noted that when the police investigated the barrel, there were still remnants of different kinds of fabric like jersey (t-shirts), terry cloth (like towels), and weaved fabric (like bed sheets). It was odd because the Eastburns’ house was missing sheets and towels. It was also discovered that Timothy Hennis was in some financial hotwater. Earlier that week in May 1985, the landlord had stopped by to present Hennis with an eviction notice. On May 9th, Hennis wrote the landlord a check for the $300 rent and asked him not to deposit it for a few days. Military personnel get paid on the 1st and 15th so it’s completely possible he could have been saying to wait until he got paid in 6 days, buuuuuut….

It was also discovered that Katie Eastburn’s ATM card had been used on Friday the 10th at 10 pm and Saturday May 11th at 11am. Each time the account had $150 withdrawn. It would be very difficult for Katie to have used her card since it was determined that she and her daughters were dead on Thursday. Remember, the newspapers for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were still outside while the Thursday paper was inside and the Seafleds had seen Katie and 2 of the girls Thursday night.

So, detectives got an idea to check the ATM logs to find out who used the machine right after Katie’s card was used. Records showed that a lady named Lucille Cook used the machine less than 4 minutes after Katie’s card was used. Police asked her if she saw the person in front of her and she confirmed that she did. She said that she had seen a man and saw him walk to his white car. She picked Hennis out of a photo lineup.

Another strange occurrence before the murders was that Katie had been getting crank calls. Not “Is your refrigerator running?” type crank calls. These were described as “harassing.” Katie had been getting these calls from an unknown man ever since Gary left and the Tuesday before the murders was another instance. Their babysitter, Julie, was there that day and she told detectives that Katie prepped her on how to deal with these calls.

Oddly enough, Katie’s ATM card had not been used after Hennis’ arrest on May 15th and since they were murdered and left in the house for 3 days and now the house is a crime scene, it is not known when/if the crank calls stopped.

Trial #1

Just over a year later, on May 27, 1986, Timothy Hennis’ trial began. People were getting in literal fist fights so that they could get into the courtroom. The prosecution was very heavy handed in the trial in that they attempted to present 99 photos of the crime scene and autopsies and the way they presented them was…a little much. They were mostly pictures of the heads and chests of Erin, Kara, and Katie Eastburn so that their wounds were the main focus and their faces were front and center.

In the end only 35 of the photos were allowed into the actual trial, but the prosecution used every. single. one. multiple times in multiple ways. They had a gigantic screen erected in the courtroom directly over where Hennis would be seated. Thus, when they presented slides of the autopsies and the injuries, they would be huge, in as much color as the 80s could provide, and right above Hennis. But then, they passed around 8’x10’ glossy color prints of the same graphic photos to the jury one…by…one for 90 minutes.

The prosecution also requested that the court take a field trip to the Eastburn’s home so that when Patrick Cone testified, they could see how far he was from the man he saw and illustrate that Cone could see the man clearly. The defense was furious and objected vehemently, but the judge allowed it. So, in the light of day (unlike the dark, early morning hours when he originally saw the man) the courtroom convened outside the Eastburn home.

On July 4th, 1986, this trial ended when the jury convicted Timothy Baily Hennis of the 1st degree premeditated murders of Erin, Kara, and Katie Eastburn and the rape of Katie Eastburn. Only 4 days later is was determined that his sentence for these crimes would be 3 death sentences for the murders and a life sentence for the rape.

Appeals and Trial #2

Hennis’ lawyers immediately jumped to file appeals based on the numerous errors they claimed occurred during the first trial. They claimed 59 errors on the appeal and a huge focus of the errors was in the macabre and gratuitous/excessive use of the autopsy and crime scene photographs. The issue was that, while the prosecution can present photographs of crime scenes and autopsies, they should “illustrate testimony,” and there are criteria that should be considered in using them that helps keep the photographs from being considered probative.
The defense was arguing that the photographs in this case were used solely to stir emotions in the jurors from what they depicted to how they were presented. So that’s why they convicted him and sentenced him to death. The Supreme Court reversed the conviction and granted Hennis a new trial! In this new trial, the defense was coming in, guns blazing. They’d found new witnesses to discredit the prosecution’s witnesses and Patrick Cone basically discredited himself (possibly with the help of the prosecution a little bit).

Patrick Cone had gotten himself into a fair amount of trouble since the first trial and had gotten arrested. While he was in custody, this guy had the audacity to say to the police, “Do you know who I am?! I am a key witness for the prosecution!” The officers were like, “Cool story. You still can’t do bad shit.” But turns out, he kinda can because his charges were dismissed and he was released. The defense claimed that the prosecution was behind this drop of charges.

Cone was also being a loud mouth and telling people that he wasn’t really sure what he’d seen. At the time, he told his dad and coworkers what he’d seen and his story had stayed the same, but after the conviction he was saying he wasn’t sure. Friends would come forward to the defense to say that he was just a drunk and that he was delusional. During the first trial, Tim Hennis didn’t take the stand, but in this one he did and he denied any involvement in the murders of the Eastburns. He didn’t crack under cross examination and actually did a good job on the stand. This actually surprised his own lawyers who thought he was going to lose his cool.

The defense’s next new person to take the stand was a man named John who had lived down the street from the Eastburns. John reportedly looked almost identical to Tim Hennis. The defense had found him right after the conviction and found that he worked nights at Winn Dixie. John walked to and from this job and carried a change of clothes in a backpack. It was also mentioned that John tended to have difficulty with sleeping after he got off work and he’d frequently take longer walks in order to try and get tired or unwind. Then he was fired from Winn Dixie for stealing so those walks were pretty much over.

Then, the defense called the newspaper carrier for the Eastburns’ neighborhood. The delivery person remembered that the early morning hours of May 10th were foggy and it was still pretty dark out. So foggy and dark that she didn’t see and almost rear-ended a parked van near the Eastburns, but was able to swerve to avoid it. Yet, she claimed she was able to see a man in the Eastburns’ front yard and was able to describe him as 5’7” and medium built white man with long stringy hair. The newspaper delivery person was adamant that the man she saw was not Tim Hennis.

The defense also introduced the idea of another possible suspect, Mr. X. While in prison, Hennis received a letter that said:

DEAR MR. HENNIS

I DID THE CRIME, I MURDERED THE EASTBURNS. SORRY YOU’RE DOING THE TIME.

THANKS, MR. X

On April 19th, 1989, Timothy Hennis was acquitted of all charges.

Freedom for Hennis/Fear for the Eastburns

Tim Hennis was free to go and was able to hold his daughter for the first time in years. His lawyers suggested that he get out of the Army, but he chose to stay. He was credited for the time he’d spent in prison and got back pay. Hennis continued to proclaim his innocence and said that the police just wanted to close the case and put someone away without actually investigating. He and his lawyers felt that the prosecution didn’t consider anyone else.

Since the murders of his wife and daughters, Gary Eastburn had tried to move forward. He took the job in England and he and Jana tried to make a new kind of life. Gary met an English nurse and they married in 1991 when Jana was 8. Jana said, “She really is the only mom that I’ve ever known, and I wouldn’t want her to feel any other way about that.”

Jana also told 20/20 that she couldn’t remember anything about that time and that she often feels guilty about that. When she learned that Hennis was a free man again, she switched from guilt to fear. She said she lived in fear that he was going to come after her or that she was going to run into him somewhere. Jana also said that she struggles with the question of why he left her alive. Detectives Bittel and Watts can only assume, but they think that he left her because she most likely could never identify him, but Kara and Erin might.

Gary Eastburn left the Air Force in 1993, but Tim Hennis continued to rise through the ranks. During his time in the Air Force, Hennis was deployed to Saudi Arabia during Desert Storm and later to Somalia. He got promotions and commendations and in 2004 Tim Hennis retired as a Master Sergeant (the highest ranking enlisted soldiers in the military).

Karma’s a Bitch

In 2005, Hennis and his family were making a life in Washington state after his retirement from the military. Very coincidently, the Eastburns had also made their home in Washington state just 30 minutes from where Hennis and his family would settle. Back in North Carolina, a cold case detective decided that the big box in storage labeled “Eastburn” was his next priority. Captain Larry Trotter was in charge of cold cases in Cumberland County at the time and decided to look at the evidence and realized that there was a vaginal swab from Katie Eastburn that in 1985 couldn’t be tested, but in 2005 it could be.

It had been 20 years since the murders, and technology had come a long way so he sent the swab to a lab. The results came back and they said that the spermatozoa that was recovered from Katie Eastburn’s body after her murder was Hennis’ and had a 1 in 1.2 quadrillion (or 12,000 million) chance of being someone other than Hennis. Hennis’ sperm was found in Katie Eastburn so now the prosecution had genetic evidence linking Hennis to the rape and murder of Katie and her daughters. However, he had been acquitted in the state of North Carolina so double jeopardy was attached. He couldn’t be tried again for their murders. Except that he could…

Trial #3

When Tim Hennis was acquitted in 1989 he was in the Air Force, and they compensated him for his years of service while he was in prison once he was acquitted. Then he continued to serve until 2004. After 23 years of service, he retired which means that now he’s being paid retirement. And according to our friendly neighborhood JAG officer, Mama Margot on Military Murder, when you retire from the military, your retirement pay is a little different, because you are being paid a reduced amount for a reduction in your services. So the Army owns you. Basically, if you are in the military, they own you, but if you retire from service and you are receiving money from the government, they. still. own. you.

Which worked perfectly to get around the Double Jeopardy Clause which allows for the state and federal courts to try a person for the same crime. So, while North Carolina could not touch Hennis, the Army owned his ass. In September of 2006, now 48-year-old Hennis was called back to active duty and ordered to return to Fort Bragg. Once there, he was arrested for the murders (he couldn’t be charged with the rape because the statute of limitations had expired) and court-martialed by a panel of 14 military members/peers. His unprecedented 3rd trial started on March 17, 2010.

Hennis’ lawyers claimed that the new evidence wasn’t trustworthy because the lab where the DNA had been tested was in the middle of a scandal. They had been found to be manipulating the evidence in favor of the prosecution. However, it was noted that the Eastburn evidence was not tainted. The defense argued no motive, and Hennis had had no other instances of violence.

The defense also decided to take a different and questionable route in this trial. The defense decided that their strategy was to claim consensual sex. They claimed that Hennis’ sperm was in Katie, because they had had consensual sex when he’d come over to get the dog. They weaved a story about a woman who’s home alone and lonely when her husband is out of town and a man with a wife who’d just had a baby so they can’t have…relations. Both wanted to “scratch the itch” so they slept together. So basically the defense went with the victim-is-whore story thinking that would save Hennis. It was not a good look. Also, the detectives had asked Hennis 20-years-ago if he’d had sex with Katie and he said no. So either he lied then or he was lying now.

Finally on April 8, 2010 after 3 hours of deliberation, the jury came back with a verdict. The now 52-years-old, Timothy Hennis was found guilty on all 3 murders and the jury later came back with a sentence of death. His sister Beth Brumfield pleaded with the jurors to spare her brother saying, “I don’t want to be left alone. I still love him. I believe in him.” His sister-in-law said Hennis had been like a father to her.

His own kids were both upset by the verdict and sentence. His 18-year-old son, Andrew, collapsed when he heard. Kristina, the infant at the time of the murders, was now 25 and pregnant with her second child and said that her father was her hero. She also said, “I love spending time with my father.”

No military members sentenced to death have been executed since 1961 when John Bennett was executed for raping an 11-year-old girl. Most of the time, their death sentences are commuted to life without parole. However, all of Hennis’ petitions and motions and attempts to appeal this last conviction have been denied. As recently as March of 2020 his conviction and sentence have been upheld.

The Eastburns are trying to continue with their lives. When asked if he was mad about Tim Hennis’ 1989 acquittal, he said yes he’s mad, but you have to move forward. And after this 3rd trial and Hennis’ final conviction, Gary told the media that was waiting outside that their hearts went out to the Hennis family because he knows what it’s like to lose a loved one.