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Note: Cameron Santana is one of the two authors of A MURDER ON CAMPUS: The Professor, The Cop, And North Carolina's Most Notorious Cold Case
Cameron Santana, “The Cop,” in 2006 as a new member of the Raleigh Police Department
When I first started teaching university writing seminars on true crime, my brother Cameron was still active with the Raleigh Police Department and was less interested in the genre.
“I didn’t watch true crime documentaries or listen to podcasts because after I got off of work, I wanted to do something other than police work,” Cameron said a few weeks ago, describing his attitude toward the genre in 2018.
His feelings made sense. By 2018, Cameron had been with the Raleigh Police Department for 12 years and had experienced his share of on-the-job related stresses: from life and death struggles with suspects he attempted to arrest, including one injury that required surgery, to the challenges he faced with the birth of a second child who doctors quickly discovered would have special needs. His life was hectic, and the birth of his second child caused him to realize that he needed a break from the unpredictable demands of police work to care for his family. So, he stepped down from his role at one of the largest police departments in North Carolina.
During Cameron’s leave of absence, we connected more closely for the first time in years. I talked with him about the cases my classes were investigating and solicited his advice on navigating departmental dynamics when my students encountered obstacles.
While discussing cases connected to my class, Cameron became more interested in true crime investigations. “I still want to be a cop,” he told me during one memorable conversation. His burgeoning interest solidified once he read the book I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara.
Shortly afterward, I suggested we work on a case together and pointed out that our unique backgrounds and skill sets would make us a good team. Cameron is familiar with the North Carolina law enforcement community and police investigations. I am a professionally trained researcher with experience locating and evaluating sources within manuscript and archival settings.
Virginia Olson’s 1973 murder was a natural choice for our first collaboration. I always tell my students to find a case they care about, and Virginia Olson’s unsolved murder is one that I’ve been thinking about since I was a Drama student at UNCA in 1999. Some of my college professors were classmates of Olson’s in the 1970s, and passing along her story was a rite of passage for new drama majors.
I remember arriving on UNCA’s campus in 1999 and feeling unsure about what I wanted to do with my life. It was a challenging and exciting period, and the story of a young girl who studied in the same department as me, performed in the same spaces, and who lost her life on the brink of adulthood felt especially tragic.
At that point in my life, I hadn’t experienced the kind of loss that inevitably comes with the movement into adulthood, but in a way, learning about Virginia Olson’s death served a similar purpose. It was a reminder that life is unpredictable, rarely fair and that growing old is a privilege and not a guaranteed experience.
Investigating what happened to Virginia Olson and discovering who might be responsible for her death became a way of reconnecting with my brother and “finding” a person in Olson who was pivotal in my maturation but whose life and death felt elusive.
Virginia Olson’s life and death had become a ghost story when we started this book. While the murder forever changed the UNCA campus and the local Asheville community, we quickly realized that most people knew very little about Virginia Olson as a person or the circumstances of the investigation into her murder. People readily acknowledged her case as one of the region’s oldest and most infamous, but few knew about the strange saga that caused the investigation to go cold.
We hope our book will shed new light on Virginia Olson’s life, death, and law enforcement’s dramatic race to apprehend her killer during the first 13 years of the investigation. In addition, our book presents new evidence about her killer’s identity and discloses surprising details about the original investigation. We hope this book will reignite community discussion about a case that should have been solved long ago.
